I looked at him and Hugh. “Can we use it?”
“We could,” Hugh said.
“If we could make the sound loud enough,” Curran said.
Ghastek looked at Phillip. The mage smiled. “The Mage College offers thirty-seven specialties. One of them is sound and light amplification. As long as you find bagpipers, we will amp their sound loud enough to wake the gods.”
“That’s amazing,” I told them, and meant it.
All we had to do now was pull the city together and cobble an army to face Neig. We had three days in which to do it. It had to be enough.
Atlanta would come together. We weren’t just one thing. We were many: shapeshifters, necromancers, witches, mages, mercenaries . . . We came in all shapes and sizes, in every age, in every human color, in every variation of magic, and from that we drew our strength. We were surprising and unexpected, and we were united.
Atlanta would hold its own. It always did.
* * *
• • •
“BABY,” CURRAN WHISPERED into my ear.
I opened my eyes. I was so warm and comfortable, wrapped in him. As long as we stayed in bed like this, under the sheets, nothing could go wrong.
The magic was up. It was day five. We’d caught a lucky break, finally, and after a short magic wave on the first day of our three-day timeline, the tech held for three days and four nights. The shift happened while we were awake, and Curran remained solid this time. The tech, like magic, flooded the world with various intensities. A strong tech wave could rip him away from me. I lived these days in a state of constant paranoia.
The rest of it was a whirlwind of negotiating, explaining, demonstrating, pulling the alliance together. Between Curran and me, we’d probably gotten about twelve hours of sleep in the last seventy-two, but last night, after the bulldozers finally rolled off the field and the last of the preparations had been made, we finally went to bed, in a tent, on the outskirts of the battlefield. Martha and Mahon took Conlan, so we could rest. We were alone.
Neig was coming.
I reached for Curran. He kissed me. We shared a breath. I kissed him back, and then again and again, his lips, his stubbled jaw, his face. His hair had grown overnight into a tangled mane, and I threaded my fingers through it.
He pulled me closer to him, our bodies sliding together with ease and practice. He kissed my neck and my lips. For three days, I’d been Sharratum, because I’d had to be. I’d met with the mayor and the governor, as part of the Conclave’s delegation. I’d called in favors. I’d promised the sky and the moon for assistance. But right now, I was Kate, and I kissed him with desperate need. He responded as if I’d set him on fire and he couldn’t wait to burn.
“This won’t be the last time,” he said.
“Not if I can help it,” I told him.
“I promise you,” he said, his voice low, almost a snarl. “This won’t be the last time. Do you trust me?”
“With everything.”
“It won’t be the last time,” he swore.
We made love, hot and wild. Then we got up, cleaned up, got dressed, and stepped out of the tent.
In front of us and behind us, tents lined the fields cleared on both sides of the road. A sea of tents. The sun had barely risen above the horizon, and in the young light, the world seemed fresh. I took Sarrat and the other saber I carried and walked east, to the apex of the low hill that stretched north to south. Erra was already there, staring at the battlefield.
It stretched before us, rolling into the distance. My father had cleared it two years back, because he’d planned to build the Water Gardens there, a place of his favorite childhood memories. Normally the vegetation would’ve reclaimed it by now, but when my father wanted something to stay clear, it did. It was a wide rectangular field, two miles wide and six miles long. The jagged remnants of a stone tower, still black from soot, stuck out in the middle of it, all that remained of my father’s castle. We’d left it on the field. According to Andrea, it made a handy marker for her ballistae.
I glanced to the right, where the battery was positioned. She was already there, pointing at something and arguing with MSDU’s colonel. The military had joined us. The National Guard came first. The guardsmen weren’t full-time soldiers. Most of the time, they were mechanics, teachers, police officers, office workers. As we pulled the city together for battle, a lot of them got swept up in it. On the second day, Lt. General Myers, a fit black woman in her late fifties, walked into our headquarters in the Guild. I was trying to read through the convoluted document the Druids had drawn up, outlining the terms of their cooperation, and I finally threw it into Drest’s face and told him that either he fought with us or he could deal with Neig on his own after he burned Atlanta to the ground, but I didn’t have time for his machinations. He swore and stormed out, and then she was there. We looked at each other for a long moment, and then she said, “What do you need?”
No conditions. No bargaining. Just “What do you need?” I told her, and she made it happen.
We needed everything. We had everything there was to be had now: the MSDU, the National Guard, the human volunteers, the mercs, the Red Guard, the Pack, the People, the Order, the mages, the Covens, the volhvs, and the other pagans. We even got the Druids, which was why if I squinted hard enough, I could see small white stones sitting on both sides of the field.
We were as ready as we were going to be.
It wouldn’t be enough unless my father showed up. He’d come to visit during that short magic wave on the first day to discuss strategy. He sat at our kitchen table while Hugh, Curran, and Erra tried to explain things to him in two languages. At one point he declared that we were making it too complicated, and then Hugh drew stick figures on pieces of paper, trying to explain it. My father had gotten the strategy by the end, but whether he would stick to it was anyone’s guess.
“Do you think Father will show up?” I asked her.
“He will,” she said.
Martha joined us, followed by George, carrying Conlan. I took him from her and hugged my son. I’d thought about trying to send him out of the city, to hide him somewhere, but it would be no use. My son shone too bright. Either my father or Neig would find him, and if not them, someone else. For Conlan to survive, we had to triumph.
Everything was on the line.
Clan Wolf began to form up in front of the hill, just inside the boundary of my territory. Most of our forces were strategically positioned already, but Clan Wolf was the front and center, backed by Clan Jackal, the Guild’s mercs, and the National Guard. I could see Curran’s blond mane down there, as he moved among the ranks. The shapeshifters looked at him with awe. He was their god come to life.
The mages were arranging themselves on the hill to the left. A good number of them looked really young. Phillip had brought students.
The witches waited in the rear, flanked by Hugh’s Iron Dogs.
Andrea strode up the hill. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.”
“Are you and I cool? Or are you going to hold this Hugh thing over my head?”
“We’re cool.” I didn’t even care about Hugh anymore. “Knock them dead.”
“You still owe me a lunch.”
“Oh for the love of . . . Fine. When and where?”
“You know where.”
“Fine. Parthenon it is, two weeks from now.”
“Deal.”
She raised her fist. I bumped it with mine. She went back down to her battery.
My aunt spun to me, baring her teeth in a vicious grin. “He comes.”
A line of white light snapped across the horizon, at the other end of the field.
I hugged Conlan to me. “I love you. Mommy loves you so much.”
He clung to me, suddenly alarmed.
The light broke and spat a line of armored men onto the field. From this distance, they looked like toy soldiers.
Horns blared on our side. MSDU raised the Red, White, and Blue, the National Guard added Georgia’s flag, and then individual standards snapped up at different parts of the field: Pack gray, burgundy for the Red Guard, black for the Guild, and my own green In-Shinar banners among the People.
Another line stepped out of the light. Another. Another. They kept coming.