Ruby Fever

Chapter 13

“Walther Q5 Match SF.” I lifted the gun from its spot and showed it to Alessandro seated across from me on the bench. “Blue trigger. 9 mm. 17 rounds.”

“Walther Q5, blue trigger, 17 rounds,” Alessandro repeated.

The cabin trembled as our vehicle rolled over some pothole in the road. Scarab 17, one of the latest in Grandma Frida’s line of armored personnel carriers, didn’t provide the smoothest ride but it would roll over a mine like it was nothing. The inside of it resembled the Bus: two long benches attached to the walls with a weapon console between them, which I was currently mining.

I slid the Walther back into its spot and picked up the next gun. “Duncan Arms Little Brother, red trigger, 9 mm, 17 rounds.”

“DA Little Brother, red trigger, 9 mm, 17 rounds.”

“Maximum Defense PDX.” I lifted the light machine gun out. “Tan finish, 7.62x39 mm, 21 rounds.”

“Excuse me,” Julian said from his spot to the left of me. “Why are you doing this?”

“It shaves off time from the manifestation,” I told him. “It will help him summon weapons faster.”

It also helped when the specs of the firearm were said out loud. For some reason, Alessandro retained it better, and by now we had gotten the system down to an art.

Bladed weapons didn’t require a review. They were simpler. When Alessandro needed a blade, he called up something narrow and fast or something heavy and wide and the exact length or weight of the blade didn’t really matter. But the firearms were more complicated, so we assessed them to make sure he could replicate them fast. Once Alessandro summoned something, he couldn’t summon it again for at least twenty-four hours, so selecting the right guns required a balance between too many options and not enough versatility.

“Got it,” Alessandro said. “Next.”

“Mossberg JM 940, 12 GA, 10 rounds.”

Technically it was 9 rounds but when Alessandro summoned guns, they popped into his hands with a round in the chamber already. The beautiful thing about this shotgun was its speed. In the right hands, it fired almost as fast as a semiautomatic rifle.

“Winchester 1895.” I didn’t need to go through the specs. He knew the rifle.

Julian blinked. “It’s an antique.”

“Newer isn’t always better,” Alessandro said.

“What does it even fire?”

“.30–40 Krag,” I told him. “Next, Duncan Arms, Big Brother.”

I tapped the section of the console and it slid straight up, displaying the machine gun. It weighed eighteen pounds and I didn’t feel like taking it out.

“338 Norma Magnum, maximum range 2,300 meters, 700 rounds per minute.”

Arabella had christened it the Six Thousand Dollar Gun. Linus gave it to us for free, but the ammunition it ate cost $8.50 per round. It cost us about six grand to fire it for a full minute.

Julian stared at the machine gun as if it were a striking cobra. “Is this necessary?”

“We won’t know until we get there,” Alessandro said.

“This is my family.” Julian clenched his fists.

And this was exactly why I never took clients with us. Unfortunately, Julian had insisted. If we didn’t take him with us, he would follow us in his car. I could compel him to stay if I disclosed that I was the Acting Warden, but I didn’t trust him enough. Right now, we were just FBI consultants riding to the rescue.

“ETA five minutes,” Brittney called out from the front passenger seat.

Brittney was one of our private guards and the only aegis we managed to get on our payroll. The aegis mages were hideously expensive and very selective about who they worked with. Brittney was a Notable, meaning the magic shield she projected would stop an average handgun and absorb quite a bit of rifle fire, but a sniper bullet would go straight through it.

I glanced at the screen embedded in the hull above Alessandro’s head. It showed the feed from external cameras. We were driving through an estate neighborhood, a weird hybrid of rural living and suburbia. Huge houses sprawled on two- to three-acre lots, set way back from the road and protected by walls and gates. An affluent neighborhood. Their biggest battles were likely with their HOA and herds of marauding deer.

“This has to be a big misunderstanding,” Julian said, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince us or himself. “I can’t imagine Kaylee would hurt her grandparents. It’s just not in that child’s nature.”

Human nature was a tricky thing. Five years ago, all I’d wanted to do was to scurry unnoticed through life, never causing conflicts, never getting into fights. Never drawing attention to myself. Yet here we were.

I had to make sure I didn’t screech.

Alessandro was watching me.

“She has a big heart,” Julian continued. “She was always a good girl. She wouldn’t do something like this.”

I didn’t ask him what “something like this” meant to him. He was too scared to go there. But I did need to redirect him, or he would become a distraction.

“Mr. Cabera, have you checked on your other family members?”

He gave me a startled look.

“You have a large family. We know where your parents are, and we think we know where your brother and your niece are. What about the rest of your relatives? Somebody just targeted the Head of your House.”

The Scarab turned. We were almost there.

“I don’t . . . I don’t know.” Julian’s eyes went wide.

“Please make some calls,” Alessandro said. “You can do this from the safety of our vehicle.”

“But don’t you need me?”

Normally I would have jumped at a chance to use an upper-range halcyon in a fight. But Julian’s hands kept shaking. Right now, he needed his own halcyon just to slow his breathing.

“We can fight,” Alessandro said, his voice firm and sincere. “But we can’t track down your family. You know them best. It would help us tremendously.”

“If you’re sure . . .” The relief in Julian’s eyes was painfully obvious.

“Absolutely,” I told him.

He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

The Scarab stopped.

I opened a small box attached to the wall of the cabin, took out two pieces of chalk, and stuck them in my pocket. I doubted they would give me an opportunity to draw an arcane circle, but it was always better to have the chalk than to not.

The view on the screen showed a paver driveway. Kaylee wouldn’t let us get through the doors of the house. She’d want a spectacle in front of an audience and whoever was with her likely preferred to target us in the open. The pavers of the driveway lay close together but not close enough for an arcane circle. The line would be broken. I’d need the screen.

Alessandro unlocked the rear door. Heavy metal clanged and the ramp slid to the ground. Brittney came from the front, dressed in full tactical gear complete with a helmet and bulletproof vest.

“Stay with Mr. Cabera,” I told her.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I undid the Velcro straps securing the roll of the screen to the hull and slid the cloth handles onto my shoulder. Made of dark plastic with several layers, the screen resembled a giant yoga mat, six by six when laid flat. It took the chalk like a dream. Circle mats like this one had existed forever, but common wisdom said that only circles drawn directly on unmoving surfaces, solid ground, the concrete roof of a building, and so on, were actually useful. Drawing a circle on a mat broke the magic continuity and failed to anchor it to the ground. Without that anchor, the circles were just chalk drawings. I had tested it myself, and the drop in power with an unanchored circle was dramatic.

However, last year I saw a recording of a powerful psionic using a mat on the grass. He’d managed to draw a House level circle on it, and it worked well enough for him to frighten hundreds of people into a blind stampede. I’d researched it, and Linus and I made appropriate modifications. The tube under my arm now was prototype #8. It worked, but it weighed almost fifty pounds.

I picked up Linus’ sword. The blade felt clunky in my hand but reassuring all the same. It was also the only weapon Alessandro couldn’t summon. The same inlay that enabled the weapon to generate a null field when primed with magic also short-circuited Alessandro’s powers. He could replicate it, but only as an inert hunk of metal.

I hefted the blade in my hand. Good to go.

Alessandro and I walked down the ramp. He held out his hand. I gave him my yoga mat—arguing with him about it was pointless—and we approached the gates.

The house, a two-story Texas Mediterranean, rose in front of us at the end of a long driveway. It could have been on the cover of a luxury real estate publication in any of the state’s large cities. Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, it didn’t matter. Rich Texas was rich Texas. You could drive through any millionaire neighborhood and find a monster just like this one: thirteen thousand square feet and way too many bedrooms and bathrooms mashed together by beige stucco walls under a red tile roof.

This particular variation featured a Roman style portico with columns protecting glass-and-wood double doors and a short turret to the right of the entrance with a wrought iron Juliet balcony. The driveway ended in a roundabout with a massive fountain in the center of it, its spire the same height as the house. An iron gate stood wide open at the mouth of the driveway as if daring us to enter.

“Can you feel her?” Alessandro asked.

“Not yet.”

We both knew Kaylee would zero in on me the moment I came into range. I was betting on a lifetime of feeling inferior. No matter how pretty and rich someone was, among the Houses, your magic was your primary asset. Kaylee had spent most of her life hiding her lack of magic power from her friends and her family. Crushing a mental mage would be the ultimate flex for her. Arkan must’ve told her about my powers and killing me would be doubly sweet. I was both a mental mage and a rival. I saw the way she had looked at Alessandro when he took my hand.

Nobody would be sniping us. That’s why we had left our aegis with the transport, guarding our civilian ride-along.

We strolled up the driveway, taking our time, me on the right side and him on the left. The protective shell I’d been growing around my consciousness was almost complete. My mind floated in a tightly wrapped ball of vines spun from my magic. I’d begun building it the moment we decided on this trip. Maintaining it sapped my strength, but I had magic to spare.

Alessandro stopped and put his arm in front of me.

A creature perched at the top of the fountain, gripping its spire with oversize clawed fingers. Seven feet tall, it resembled an ape, slabbed with thick muscle under long nasty black fur. Its face was a horrifying meld of a baboon and a lion with a simian nose, massive jaws, and tiny eyes sunken deep into its skull. Sharp black quills thrust from its back, bristling like the needles of some nightmarish porcupine.

Revulsion hit me.

The beast stared at us. The quills on his back snapped upright.

Nausea swirled deep in the pit of my stomach and blossomed into fear. The urge to run gripped me, overwhelming my common sense. My body knew on a basic animal level that this thing was wrong and awful and the only way to survive was to run as fast and as far as I could.

Prime Nathan Sanders. A metamorphosis mage out of Alberta. Powerful, experienced, and nasty in a fight.

We had fought a metamorphosis mage before. Her name was Celia. Neither my magic, nor the bullets from the handguns Alessandro had summoned, worked on Celia after she’d transformed. My memory served up Alessandro splattered with blood, slicing a beast in half with a chainsaw. It had taken that chainsaw, a sword, and the world’s most powerful hunting revolver shot into her mouth to take her down. Later we found that Celia happened to be Nathan’s cousin.

A low growl sounded from my right. A larger version of the baboon lion waited under a tall oak. This one on all fours, bigger, thicker, with paws the size of dinner plates and claws like steak knives.

A third beast perched in the branches of the oak to Alessandro’s left, smaller than the largest monster but larger than the one on the fountain. Its fur was a dark, dirty red mottled with black, its face more cat than baboon, its body completely quadrupedal. It gripped the branch of the tree with all four feet, its black claws hooked into the bark like sickles. A reddish mane framed its head and thick neck. If it had the ability to transform into a human shape, no signs of that remained.

Luke and Gabin. Sanders had brought his sons.

Alessandro slid the screen off his shoulder and unfolded it calmly. I sent my magic twisting to Nathan on the fountain. His mind was completely opaque, inert without any humanity left. The lights were on, but nobody human was home. Nothing I did to this consciousness would have any effect. House Sanders were holos-metamorphs. Once they changed shape, only the prey drive remained. They locked on a target as if their life depended on it, pursued their prey with single-minded ferocity, and didn’t stop until they ripped them apart.

The beast on the fountain opened his mouth, showing us huge conical fangs.

I flicked my sword. The blade unfolded, snapping into shape. The sword generated its own null field. It would cut through anything as long as you fed it magic, but it burned through your power reserve in seconds. I had to use it sparingly.

The muscles on Luke, the largest beast, bunched. He gathered himself like a lion before a sprint. On the other side, catlike Gabin rose on the branch. The red mass around his neck, which I had mistaken for a mane, snapped upright like the hood of some crimson cobra.

Alessandro dropped the unfolded screen to the ground in front of me. I sent a pulse of magic through the blade. The organometallic inlay sucked it in, glowing, feeding off my power like a leech.

“I love you,” Alessandro said.

“I love you, too. Take the sword.”

“Keep it.”

Nathan flexed and leaped off the fountain, a veiny, flesh-colored membrane popping open along his arms. Alessandro lunged left, while I dodged right. Orange sparks burst above Alessandro’s hands, coalescing into a shotgun. The Mossberg thundered in a three-shot burst.

Boom-boom-boom!

The slugs hit the simian beast in midair. Nathan screeched, dropping, his trajectory aborted.

Luke charged toward us from my right.

I lunged into his path, feeding a wallop of magic into my null blade.

Alessandro spun toward Gabin still perched in the tree on the left and fired again.

Boom-boom-boom!

Luke barreled at me, fast, eyes shining with malice. I spun out of the way half a second before he would’ve hit me and sliced at his side as he tore past me. The null sword carved through ribs, muscle, and gristle like they weren’t even there. The beast screamed, an eerily human sound coming from an animal’s throat, and kept running, ignoring me.

Boom-boom-boom!

Alessandro sank a three-round burst into Nathan as he twitched on the ground, spun, fired toward Luke, and dashed to the side, as Gabin pounced on him. Alessandro backed away, dodging the claws like he knew where Gabin would strike before he even aimed. The cat’s shoulder bled. Alessandro must have grazed it with that second burst.

Luke missed Alessandro and clumsily turned around. I had wrecked his insides with my slash. Even with the insane healing powers of the metamorphosis mages, it would slow him down.

Pain tore at my mind. The flexible shell of my magic blocked most of it, but what filtered through slashed me like a white-hot buzz saw. Kaylee.

I cut off the magic flow to the sword and strained, sending more vines to wrap around my mind. Her range was longer than mine. I could barely sense her to my right, somewhere in the house. I needed a boost to take her on. The mat was four feet away.

The PDX machine gun materialized in Alessandro’s hands.

Kaylee struck at me, her magic a torrent of hatred. The world turned scalding white. The tatters of my magic slithered, trying to close the gap Kaylee had torn open. I went blind.

Gunfire erupted.

I kept moving, taking tiny steps in the direction of the mat. She tore at my shell, gouging chunks in my vines.

My foot nudged the edge of the mat. I took a big blind step onto it and stomped. A dry crunch announced the hidden reservoir on the underside of the mat breaking. The bottom part of the mat melted as the two chemicals mixed, and the liquefied plastic slipped between the pavers, anchoring the mat in place.

Kaylee cut through my shell. Pain scalded me. I wrapped more vines over the wound, pulled the chalk out of my pocket, crouched, and drew a perfect circle around my feet on pure muscle memory.

A short guttural grunt came from the left. Alessandro. He was hurt.

Kaylee hit me again. A burst of agony exploded in my mind. I gritted my teeth and added another circle to the main one.

She pounded on my mind. Cutting hadn’t worked, so she’d resorted to brute force, raining blows onto me. Like trying to draw while someone smashed the back of your head with a baseball bat. I moved faster, the chalk gliding across the mat. The shell over my mind was paper-thin. A few more hits and I was done.

Punch. Rage sparked inside me.

Punch.

Punch.

You fucking bitch. You want my attention, I’ll give you some.

I finished the last line, not knowing if it connected, straightened, and sank a pulse of my power into the circle. A geyser of pure magic burst through me, surging through my veins, purging pain, uncertainty, and fear. Only power remained, streaming through me like the current of a great river. I sent another pulse, and the circle responded. There was so much magic, I was drunk on it.

My vision cleared and I saw everything at once: the house in front of me, Kaylee grinning on the Juliet balcony, and Alessandro to my left, tossing an empty gun at Gabin. The feline monster and Nathan had boxed him in. Luke was limping over, trailing blood and pieces of his guts. Alessandro was trapped between them, and his back was red with blood.

The furious thing inside me howled, trying to break free and screech its fear at the world. They’d hurt him! They’d hurt him and I had to hurt them back! I would kill them. I would rip their pitiful minds to shreds.

I felt Kaylee gathering her power for another blast, her mind a brilliant white star.

Inside me dark wings flailed, straining, trying to emerge, their tips glowing with ruby red. They wanted to rip open my body and mind and burst forth like a butterfly from a chrysalis. They wanted to punish, kill, and protect.

No. I was in charge. I would decide.

The thing inside me clashed with my will, screeching to be let free. I grasped it and held it firmly.

I would not screech.

Wings opened at my back and for a torturous moment my feathers were a muddy grey.

I would not screech.

This was my magic. Mine. I didn’t answer to it. It answered to me.

I opened my mouth and sang. Color burst through my feathers, bright vivid green and gold.

Gabin saw me and faltered from sheer surprise.

I held out my sword, drew more magic from the circle, and let the melody rise out of me. It was a beautiful song full of promises and forgiveness. It spread from me like a wave, washed over Kaylee’s mind, and swept away her meager defenses. She knew how to attack but she had no idea how to defend herself.

Alessandro sprinted between two beasts with unearthly grace. His hand brushed mine, I let go of the sword, and he caught it.

My song soared, higher and stronger, spreading through the house.

The three beasts bore down on us, Gabin in the lead, his father right behind him, and Luke still staggering a few yards behind.

On the Juliet balcony, Kaylee wept like an overwhelmed child.

Alessandro slashed through Gabin’s leg, whipped around, carved through Nathan’s deformed skull, and then buried the blade in Luke’s barrel chest. Nathan collapsed. Luke sagged onto his knees. Gabin ran, jerkily, picking up speed despite bleeding from the stump of his left paw.

My magic surged through the mansion, finding the bright sparks of other minds. I sang to them, promising safety, and kindness, and love.

Orange magic swirled around Alessandro. The Winchester appeared in his hands. He sighted the fleeing mage and fired. The three-legged creature dropped like a stone.

The front door opened, and people walked out, their gazes fixed on me. Elias, and an elderly couple, moving slowly, three middle-aged men, and one woman. Kaylee climbed over the iron rail and jumped to the pavers below. Her left leg snapped like a twig. She tried to stand, fell, and crawled toward me.

I needed to separate her from them. As long as I held her mind, she wasn’t a threat.

Alessandro was walking toward me. His shirt hung in shreds, red gashes crossing his chest.

Black pulsed through my wings. I wrestled the control back, forcing the green to wash away the jet feathers, and kept singing.

A deafening metal groan rolled through the air. I turned toward where it came from and saw a giant metal cylinder rise above the treetops. It was thirty feet long and eight feet wide. It hovered in the air for a moment and spun. Blades slid out of the shaft.

The Grinder. Connor’s House spell. Except this wasn’t my brother-in-law, because Connor’s Grinder had three cylinders, not one.

I had to get those people out of here. Where was safe? The Scarab wouldn’t stand up to the Grinder. The house wouldn’t either. If the Grinder didn’t cut or crush us, the debris from the house would end us. We had to scatter, except everyone was bound to me. If I tried to run, they would just follow me like baby ducks and if I yanked my magic away, they would collapse.

The Grinder dropped, rolling forward. The trees between it and us snapped like toothpicks and behind them Xavier stood in the middle of a basketball court, a complex arcane circle glowing around him. He wore headphones. A deranged grin lit his face.

I reached toward him.

Too far.

Alessandro spun, snapping the Winchester to his shoulder. A shot cracked. Xavier laughed without making a sound.

Alessandro didn’t miss. Xavier’s circle had created null space. Our reality ended at that outer chalk line. The bullet didn’t penetrate. Nothing would penetrate, not even a missile launch. As long as his magic lasted, he was invulnerable. The only way to survive was to get out of his range and line of sight.

Kaylee’s elderly grandparents stared at me with adoration. They had no idea they were in danger. I had sung to them and promised them that everything would be all right. I could run away, but Xavier would kill everyone I’d beguiled.

The bladed metal cylinder rolled forward, spinning through the air three feet above the ground. Alessandro lunged to me.

The Grinder froze. It was still spinning, it just wasn’t moving forward.

Xavier strained, his face a grimace.

The Grinder stayed where it was.

The trees on our right snapped and fell. Mad Rogan stood in the middle of a simple amplification circle drawn on the road. Nevada stood next to him. Behind them a tactical team sighted Xavier through the scopes on their rifles.

Mad Rogan’s face looked like it was carved from granite.

Now was my chance. I stopped singing and smiled. “Come here.”

They did, tripping over their own feet, trying to cluster around me.

“It would make me happy if you went to the bus,” I told them.

They moved as one.

Alessandro picked the elderly woman up and carried her to the Scarab. Julian ran out and held out his arms. Alessandro handed the elderly woman to him, turned around, and walked back to where Kaylee was still clawing her way across the driveway.

The Grinder still spun in place. Alessandro walked six feet from it, unhurried, scooped up Kaylee into a fireman’s carry, and leisurely strolled back.

Xavier let out a silent scream.

Alessandro gave Mad Rogan a wave and deposited Kaylee at my feet. She hugged my legs, her eyes shiny and bottomless. “I love you so much, I’m so sorry. For everything. So sorry. Do you still like me?”

I patted her hair.

Alessandro hugged me to him like I was his greatest treasure.

Xavier’s nose was bleeding. He clenched his fists, every muscle in his body rigid, straining. His mouth opened. He must’ve howled at the top of his lungs.

The Grinder didn’t shift an inch.

The circle under Xavier’s feet winked out like candle blown out by a draft. Xavier had exhausted his magic. There was no more power to fuel the circle.

He gaped at the Grinder in pure horror.

The Grinder turned, smoothly, as if it weighed nothing.

Xavier just stared.

The cylinder spun into a blur and streaked back toward Xavier. He threw his hands out in a futile attempt to stop it. It rolled over him.

There was no sound. No scream. Just red blood on the blades.