Death Magic

THIRTY-NINE

THE catering truck had been stripped of everything usually found in such a vehicle to make room to stack twenty-two unconscious people in back. Those people were, Lily hoped, being revived or at least tended back on Webster Street. Shannon had first aid training; she’d left him at the house to help, and Mullins had planned to call it in as soon as they left.

Mike was the driver of the truck now. No lupus would have been fooled by the substitution; the front seat must reek of blood to them. But he’d tossed a jacket over the back of the seat, covering the worst of it, and humans are visual creatures. So far no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary—including the cop who’d stopped them when they needed to enter the closed-off street.

Chris was up front, too. Lily and Scott crouched on bare metal in the back of the truck, their weapons out, and listened.

So did Al Drummond. He didn’t look much like himself, being all white and filmy ... except for that glowing gold ring on his left hand.

He gave her a tight smile. He had his weapon out, too, as if he planned to charge out of the truck with the rest of them, but since it was as insubstantial as the rest of him, she didn’t think he’d be much backup.

He hadn’t spoken to her. It was clear he knew she could see him, though, and that the others couldn’t. It was clear he meant to stick with her.

Why and how had his ghost started appearing days before he died? Was that one of those “instabilities” the Etorri Rhej had mentioned, some sort of astral time warp?

Did Drummond even know he was dead?

Lily had been told by someone who ought to know that ghosts weren’t souls, but the shadows cast by souls. She’d wondered at the time what the hell that meant. She still did. And she really, really wished this one would go into the light or something and quit following her.

“What the hell you mean, the cargo don’t go here?” Mike demanded. “I was told to bring it to the stage. This is the stage.”

A muffled voice told Mike he had to take the truck to Fourteenth Street—“at the back of the gathering, by the Washington Monument. You’ve heard of it? Big pointy thing sticking way up in the air?”

“Shit. I gotta call Big Thumbs.”

“You’ve got to move this thing, and quick!”

“I do what Big Thumbs says, a*shole, not you.”

Lily nodded at Scott, then at the doors at the rear of the truck. He moved into position.

So did Drummond.

RULE ended the conversation with Harry quickly—and his phone immediately vibrated again. He answered.

It was Mark from on top of the Smithsonian. “Silver catering truck just pulled in behind the stage.”

He’d known she was here. He felt her. “Good.”

“And there’s some kind of upset at the back of the crowd near the Washington Monument—people moving away from one spot. Not running, just avoiding that spot for some reason.”

“Keep an eye on it. You see Deborah?”

“She and her guards are just the other side of the Monument. She seems to be resting.”

The elemental could be doing something that made people uneasy . . . but Matt would call if that were so. Assuming Deborah could tell, that is. “Okay. Notify José. Out.” Rule disconnected. “The catering truck’s here. They’re behind the stage.”

Parrott had kept his speech brief and was introducing someone. “Give her a warm welcome, because she’s seen the light and is here to tell the truth about what happened when Ruben Brooks fled justice. Ladies and gentlemen, Lily Yu!”

And Lily walked up the steps. Only it wasn’t Lily.

It looked precisely like her. It moved like her. It wore black slacks and a red jacket identical to one that hung in Lily’s closet . . . that thing was wearing her face, her form, stolen from her while she was locked up. The mate sense told Rule where Lily was—behind the stage, not on it. And moving. Lily was in motion, which meant she’d made her move—yes, look at Parrott turning to look behind the stage.

Crisp now and certain, Rule spoke. “That’s not Lily. It’s a dopplegänger. Lily’s making her move, though, so we need to as well. As planned—positions!”

Rule had kept the Nokolai guards with him. He’d expected trouble to come from the stage, and his Nokolai knew many useful tricks. Like this one, which was part of one of the training dances.

Six men dropped to their hands and knees, shoulder-to-shoulder in the short grass. Three men leaped onto their backs and linked arms to steady themselves.

Cullen grabbed Rule’s arm as he started to move. “There’s something weird about the Lily-double.”

Rule shook him off. “It’s not Lily. Of course it’s weird.” And along with Andy and Sean, he quickly scaled the lupi pyramid to crouch atop Jacob’s shoulders, with Andy and Sean doing the same on either side of him. Jacob’s hands gripped his ankles.

When he leaped, Jacob shoved. And Rule sailed toward the stage.

The human record for the standing long jump was a little over eleven feet. Rule wasn’t human, and Jacob’s push gave him extra momentum. He still wouldn’t make it to the stage in a single leap, but he passed over the heads of those at the very front to land lightly in the clear strip between the crowd and the stage. Andy and Sean landed on either side of him.

Their order had been settled ahead of time. Rule wanted to go first, but he was a Rho. He couldn’t risk himself unnecessarily. So when Sean bent, cupping his hands, it was Andy who accepted that stirrup. Sean heaved. Andy sailed onto the stage.

Rule was right behind him. He grabbed the edge of the stage with his hands and heaved himself up.

The not-Lily thing stood halfway between the podium and the stairs, unmoving. Parrott was nowhere in sight. Kim Evans had surged to her feet and started forward, telling them to get off, get off—

Not-Lily’s face lit in a sudden grin. It sprinted fast—faster than anything human could move—to Kim Evans, stopping behind her, drawing something from its pocket. As Rule raced toward them, it grabbed the woman’s hair, tipped her head back. And slit her throat.

Blood geysered out, some of it splattering Rule as he reached them. He seized not-Lily’s arm, using his momentum and a twist of his hip in a simple throw.

It spun with the throw, twisting so fast it landed with its feet under it, that huge grin still on its face, a bloody knife gripped in its left hand. “Oooh, yes, let’s play! Catch me if you can!” With impossible speed it darted toward the three people who’d risen from their chairs on the stage.

But while it had paused briefly to taunt, Andy and Sean hadn’t. They shot past Rule. Andy got to it a couple feet ahead of Sean. It swung one fist almost casually—and Andy went sailing off the stage. Sean closed with it, grappling for the knife. Rule ran to help him.

And from the strip of ground next to the stage Cullen yelled, “It’s possessed! That’s how they work it—they summon demons to possess the dopplegängers!”

Shit. Rule kept running.

A wolf landed on his back.

LILY heard Cullen shouting about demons possessing the dopplegängers as she raced after Dennis Parrott. Parrott had heard the commotion when she and the others burst out of the truck. It hadn’t taken him more than a second to decide to clear out. He was running flat out, headed for a long black limo.

Scott shot past her as if she’d been on a leisurely jog. Just as Parrott reached the limo, Scott tackled him.

Lily slowed and looked around to see where she was needed. She’d sent Mike and Chris to check under the stage. Mike had thrown a couple security types aside and was vanishing through the door now.

Chris, dammit, was right beside her.

“Those sons of bitches are fast,” a gravelly voice said.

She glanced quickly to her left—not at Chris. At Drummond. Or some variation on Drummond. “You can talk!”

“Huh. I guess I can. This is confusing as . . .” His voice faded out, though his mouth kept moving. He scowled and stopped trying.

“Lily?” Chris said.

“It’s that ghost. Never mind. Why aren’t you backing up Mike?”

“Uh—”

“I’m with Scott. I’m protected. Go!”

He sped off.

Scott had Parrott on the ground. He wasn’t moving. “He unconscious?” she asked.

A rising swell of screams drowned him out, but he nodded. Then paused with his head up as if he were sniffing the air. “Smells weird.”

Demon-possessed dopplegängers might. “You find any jewelry?”

Scott shook his head. “Just a watch. Could a watch be the magical whatsit you’re looking for? ”

Someone giggled. “No, silly. I’ve got it.”

Lily looked down. “Harry?”

The little brownie was jigging from foot to foot excitedly. His high-pitched voice cut through the crowd noise better than Scott’s deeper tones had. “I got the ring like Rule said, but I can’t give it to him because he’s fighting with a wolf. And I can’t give it to Cullen because he’s fighting with some other wolves on the other side of the stage.”

Fear jumped into her throat and clogged it. She swallowed. “You could give it to me.”

His face scrunched up like a wizened apple. “He didn’t say to give it to you.”

“It’s okay, though. I’m wearing the engagement ring, remember?”

His face cleared. “Yeah, you are! Here.” He tossed something up at her.

She caught the ring—heavy worked gold holding a dark red cabochon gem—then nearly dropped it. Death magic coated the thing with such thick foulness she could hardly stand to touch it. Quickly she stuffed it in her pocket. “We’ve got to get this to Cullen.” Who was fighting “some other wolves.”

Over the stage, or around it? Around was the long way, but whatever was happening on that stage was keeping Rule too busy to come check on her. Anything able to do that would keep her from getting the ring to Cullen. She set off at a run with Scott beside her.

And no ghosts. Thank God. Drummond must have gone on or whatever ghosts did.

People were fleeing. That was her first second’s impression as she rounded the end of the stage—people shoving and streaming away from the carnage and the wolves.

Some hadn’t made it. She glimpsed bodies, gore—other wolves chasing the wolves that chased the people trying desperately to get away. A pair of men faced one of the wolves. And in the trampled grass near the stage, a furious man with a movie star’s face flung a thin ribbon of fire.

Black fire. Mage fire.

It struck a wolf as the creature leaped for the stage. And burned—black flame rippling out to eat fur, skin, and muscle so fast it seemed instantaneous. The burning body fell to the ground, limbs twitching.

Another wolf leaped at the beautiful man’s back.

“Cullen!” she screamed.

He spun. The wolf slammed into him and they fell to the ground. The two men who’d been trying to keep it from Cullen leaped onto the wolf and pulled it off. One had its head, the other hugged the body tight. The one holding the head pulled it back, snapping the neck. They dropped the body.

Only it got up again. The head hung down, twisted at an insane angle. Even as Lily watched, still running, the head twitched—and started to resume its usual position. Slowly, but the damn thing was healing as she watched.

Cullen had rolled away. He sprang to his feet, threw out a hand, and sent another ribbon of black flame from his fingertips. The demon thing burned.

“I’ve got the ring,” Lily said as she came to a stop. “Parrott’s ring. It’s lousy with death magic. I hope you’ve got some juice left.”

“I’ve got juice. Put it—” His head swiveled to look up at the stage.

An Asian woman with long, straight hair leaped off it—right onto Cullen. She wore a red jacket, black slacks, and a face Lily looked at in the mirror every day. She was giggling like a teenage girl at a slumber party and she moved every bit as fast as Cullen ever had—grabbing the arm he tried to hit her with as she hauled back with a fist and punched him in the side of the head.

His head snapped back on his neck. She pulled her arm back to do it again—

And Rule leaped down from the stage, grabbing the demon-Lily’s arm as he landed, spinning her around. She grinned and swatted him playfully.

He staggered back, going to one knee.

Cullen shoved to his feet again, shook his head, and circled around the two of them to get to Lily. “Put it down! Put it on the ground!”

She bent and did that, then got out of his way. He skidded to a stop, flung out his hand, and showered the damned ring in mage fire. An awful lot of mage fire.

Lily scrambled back. As she did, black smoke erupted from the small inferno—smoke that smelled like a week-old floater. Lily choked on a whiff and coughed.

The smoke cleared as quickly as it had appeared. Cullen was on his knees—and swaying. And the demon-Lily was gone. One second she’d been dodging Rule’s kick. The next she simply . . . wasn’t.

And a buff and gray wolf charged Rule.

Lily glanced frantically around. None of the wolves had vanished. Just the demon version of her.

“Rule,” she called, “I think Cullen’s out of it as far as mage fire goes!”

“Yeah,” Cullen muttered, looking dazed as he swayed in place on his knees. He lifted one hand to his head. “Seeing double and mage fire—not a good mix.”

Scott tackled the wolf just as it reached Rule. The two of them tumbled to the ground, ending with the wolf on top and Scott holding the beast’s head, trying to keep its open jaws from his face—and losing.

Until Rule kicked it in the head—a solid roundhouse kick that should have killed it outright. It shook its head as if briefly dazed and lunged for Scott’s throat again.

Rule’s second kick was to the beast’s body, sending it tumbling.

A white form drifted in front of Lily—Drummond was back. “Come on!” he rasped. “I found him. The bastard with the kill-switch, the master control—whatever the hell you call it. He’s at the other end of this mess.”

“Who is he? What does he look like?”

“Tall, blond, prissy mouth ...” Drummond’s mouth kept moving, but without sound.

“You faded out again!” Behind him she saw Scott and Rule weaving and dodging, keeping the demon wolf busy but unable to stop it.

Drummond’s scowl deepened as if he was concentrating. He spoke slowly. “Four rings. One here, one at each rally. The master controls them all. Powers them. You have to . . .” His voice faded out again.

Should she trust him? He’d claimed not to know about death magic, but all of a sudden he knew about the rings and the master control—or whatever the hell it was. Did she have any damn reason to believe him? Drummond had died to save Mullins. That didn’t mean he wasn’t rooting for the demons at this party.

But if she didn’t go and he was telling the truth . . . what else was she going to do? If they didn’t destroy the amulet, they couldn’t stop the demon-possessed dopplegängers. Who wouldn’t die without a dose of mage fire, which Cullen couldn’t provide until he stopped seeing double.

“Rule!” she called “I think Chittenden’s here”—the description could fit Friar’s lieutenant—“and has the amulet! I’m going after him!”

He flung his head up. “No!” And the demon wolf charged him. He threw himself aside, rolled, and sprang to his feet.

Lily holstered her gun, which was no damn use whatsoever against creatures who considered a broken neck an inconvenience. And turned away from the man she loved while he battled for his life. Turned and ran.

Within seconds, Scott caught up with her. He didn’t say a word.

Rule must have sent him. Her eyes burned.

The field was clearing out faster than she would have thought possible, but it was far from empty. There were living people still fleeing. And there were bodies. A woman huddled next to one of those bodies, a man whose face and chest were so saturated with blood it was hard to see the ruin of his throat. It was horrible to do nothing. Horrible to keep running, but Lily did, chasing a white shape as vaguely formed as when she’d first seen it at the shooting range. A shape that was always a few yards ahead of her.

She ran. And ran. Scott kept pace beside her. They passed three clusters of fighting—lupi in both their forms, but mostly wolves, keeping demon wolves busy so they wouldn’t kill the humans who’d assembled here to root for an end to lupi.

As they drew near the Washington Monument, her ghostly guide suddenly veered to the left, toward a huddled mob of twenty or thirty people being circled by a pair of wolves. She followed, focusing on her breathing, on the even rise and fall of her legs, so she wouldn’t arrive too winded to do anything. And wondering what the hell she was supposed to do to save those people.

Wait a minute. She recognized one of the wolves. It was José. And he and the large gray wolf weren’t circling the people—they were patrolling, keeping one of the demon wolves away.

Stupid—she hadn’t noticed till just now, but the demon wolves were all alike. Of course they were. They’d all been made from blood or tissue from Brian’s wolf-form, so they were identical.

The ground shook.

Lily staggered, her stride broken. Someone screamed. The ground gave a second, harder shimmy, and she had to stop. Scott took her arm, steadying her.

A huge something rose from the ground. It was brownish gray and long, really long, and seemed to grow itself out of the earth, absorbing grass and dirt and rocks into itself as it became . No eyes, no legs, not much of anything but body . . . a segmented body three or four feet thick. Like an earthworm.

This time when the earth shook, Lily fell to her knees. So did Scott. And it kept on shaking.

Another form emerged, this one breaking and absorbing bits of Madison Street as it reared itself out of the earth . . . out and up, one end questing in the air as if seeking a scent. This one was even bigger, and it pulled itself together faster than the first one had.

It was not as big as the third one.

From the stage at the east end of the Mall to a spot just short of the steps to the Washington Monument, the earth bulged. It swelled up like the wall had at Fagin’s, shaping itself into segment after segment of stony worm eight feet thick . . . ten feet thick . . . twelve. Bodies rolled off as it formed itself. And, horribly, some bodies remained, incorporated into its mass along with sticks and stones, purses and grass.

The earth groaned as the creature began undulating. Moving slowly toward the first elemental.

A white but detailed Drummond darted in front of her, his mouth moving. Clearly impatient, he tried to grab Lily’s arm. His hand went right through her. She didn’t feel a thing. No cold chills. Nothing.

He grimaced and beckoned fiercely.

For one more second she stared at the enormous monster of earth and stone advancing slowly toward its smaller cousin. She couldn’t do anything about elementals. Nothing. Maybe Cullen could—if he was still alive. If he healed from the concussion fast enough.

She spun and followed Drummond.

José and the other wolf who’d been harrying the demon wolf had chased it well away from the knot of people. They didn’t seem to realize yet it was time to get away. Maybe they didn’t know where to go. Someone shoved to the edge of the mob. A woman. A woman in dirty jeans and a red shirt, with a face that would make any man hunt for a cloak to throw over puddles. “Lily!” Deborah cried. “It won’t listen to me! It’s angry—terribly angry—that it was called and wasn’t fed, and it’s angry that those others invaded its territory!”

A man slipped up behind Deborah. He wore a good-quality suit, no tie, and was tall and thin, with short honey-blond hair. And—like Drummond had said—a prissy mouth. “That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Paul Chittenden said as he slid his arm around Deborah’s neck and squeezed. “Lily Yu, isn’t it? Stop right there. I can break her neck in a second.”

Lily slowed, not quite stopping, holding her hands out to demonstrate her lack of a weapon. “Scott,” she whispered. “Can you—?”

“We’re too far,” he whispered back. “If he knows what he’s doing, he could kill her before I get there.”

Chittenden applied more pressure. Deborah’s face turned bloodless. “I said stop.”

Lily did. So did Scott.

The people closest to Deborah and Chittenden had pulled back a few paces. “Hey,” said a beefy man with a crew cut. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Stopping evil from spreading,” Chittenden said, smiling. “Do you believe in the Second Amendment, sir?”

“Yes, but—”

“So do I.” He drew a gun from inside his jacket and shot the man.

No one screamed this time. Maybe they’d overloaded on the horrors of the day. No one moved or spoke.

“Now,” Chittenden said, turning that prissy smile on Lily, the gun held casually in the hand that wasn’t choking Deborah, “we’ll have a chance to get acquainted while my pets are doing their work. So . . . do you come here often? What’s your sign? If you were stranded on a desert island—”

The woman who jumped Chittenden must have been at least sixty, and probably weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She belted him in the head with a purse the size of a small suitcase. He staggered, his gun-hand swinging around, his smile gone—and his attention diverted.

Scott shot forward like a bullet from a gun.

Chittenden backhanded the woman, who collapsed. And, from ten feet away, Scott leaped.

Quickly Chittenden brought his gun up. At point-blank range, he fired.

Scott smashed into Deborah, knocking both her and Chittenden to the ground.

Lily had shoved into a run the same moment as Scott. She was slower, but she got there. She got there seconds after Chittenden shoved Deborah and Scott off of him, just as he started to scramble to his feet. She got there with her weapon in hand, and she jammed it into his ear while he was still couched on one knee.

“Give me a reason,” she gritted. “Give me one tiny little reason. I’d love to blow your brains out.”

He froze.

Deborah lay on the ground, breathing hard, but stirring. Scott didn’t move.

“Hell with it,” Lily said, and reversed her weapon and struck him in the temple, hard, with the butt of her gun.

He collapsed.

She followed him down and hit him again, just to be sure. Then checked his eyelids. Oh, yeah, he was out. “Deborah, you okay?”

“Yes, I . . .” She wheezed. “Hurts, but I’m okay.”

“Check on Scott.” Lily grabbed Chittenden’s right hand. No ring. She reached for the other one.

“Oh, no.” Deborah sat up and felt Scott’s neck. “He’s . . . there’s a pulse.”

Relief barely had time to register. Drummond swept into Lily’s field of view. He patted his upper chest urgently, scowling.

She scowled back. Then she got it. A necklace. Chittenden wore the thing around his neck. She reached inside Chittenden’s shirt. A moment’s groping and she touched it—and recoiled.

The ring had been foul. This was ... putrescence. Needles and slime and decay, glass shards, blood gone rotten. Touching it was like being kicked in the chest. For a second she forgot to breathe.

How many? How many people had he killed to load this thing with so much death magic?

Grimly she forced herself to retrieve it, but this time she felt for the chain first. A couple of hard yanks broke the clasp and she pulled it free.

It was an amulet, as Cullen had predicted, the stone a match for the one in the ring—a dark, dull red that didn’t look like any gemstone Lily knew. The stone was oval in shape and about two inches long, set in some plain metal. Not gold, and it lacked the sheen of silver.

She sat back on her heels. Now what?

Now she took it to Cullen and hoped like hell he’d healed his concussion enough to attempt mage fire. She shoved to her feet and looked down what used to be a grassy field . . .

The stage was gone. Weirdly, the Jumbotron screen still reared up, but it loomed over a rubble of broken boards. In front of that rubble, dozens of wolves fought.

All of them, she realized as she looked around, a sudden, sick lurch of her heart making her squeeze her hands into fists. All of the demon wolves had congregated in that one spot. Where Rule was.

The elementals were battling.

The giant one had wrapped most of its length around the smallest one like an enormous boa constrictor. Neither made any sound, not a vocalization, anyway, but there was a dull grating of stone against stone. And while the giant one squeezed the smallest, the third elemental took the giant’s tail—or its far end, anyway—in its jaws and chomped.

Stone crunched.

“Oh, dear,” Deborah whispered.

Earth elementals move slowly. That’s what Lily had been told. And the giant one had seemed to be especially slow. Managing that much bulk wouldn’t be easy, especially if you didn’t practice having a physical form very often. But it turned out that elementals could move fast—when they really, really wanted to.

The coils wrapped around the smallest one loosened and the head—if that was a head—whipped around and around, unwrapping itself enough to lunge at the third elemental like a striking snake. Its jaws opened. And kept opening.

Yeah, that was definitely the head. Eyeless and blind, and not that much like an earthworm after all. Not when most of that head became a gaping, tooth-lined maw. Rows of teeth, like a shark’s—not huge teeth, not for the size of that mouth, but there were a lot of them. It caught the other elemental’s head in its jaws . . . and crunched.

The captive elemental shook. Its body began to crack, like rock struck by a hammer. Cracks, fissures, opened up in it—then all at once it exploded into dust, dust that hung in the air in a huge, dirty cloud.

Twenty or thirty tiny figures dressed all in brown raced out of the dusty cloud, little legs pumping. Brownies could move amazingly fast. “Lily, Lily!” yelled the one in the lead. “Rule’s hurt! Cullen’s hurt! Everyone’s in trouble! Do you have the nasty thing?”

“I—yes!” she called back. “But—”

“You have to break it!” Harry screamed. “Make it not-be! You have to do it now!”

“I can’t—it takes mage fire to—”

“No!” He was still yelling at the top of his little lungs even as he came to a stop in front of her. “Give it to it! Hurry!”

Do what?

“To the Great It!” He pointed at the enormous elemental, which seemed to be considering renewing its attack on the other one. But that one was beginning to subside. To sink back into the earth. Slowly, but it was on its way out of here.

“Are you nuts? You want me to feed an enraged giant elemental a colossal amount of death magic?”

He rolled his eyes. “Stupid! Earth doesn’t cleanse as quick as fire, but it cleanses. Hurry!”

Deborah spoke in her husky, damaged voice. “It’s too angry. I can feel how it rages . . . it will kill anything, anyone, that comes near.”

Lily had promised Rule she wouldn’t die. But if the only way to save Rule was to break a promise—

“Never mind. You’re too big and slow, anyway.”

“I—hey!” she cried.

The chain she’d been gripping dangled loose. The amulet wasn’t on it anymore.

And a whole troop of brownies were running away—and they were amazingly fast. Running straight toward a giant, enraged earth elemental.

“Lily?” Deborah said. “Who were we just talking to?”

Lily turned her head, incredulous. “You didn’t see them?”

“See who? I heard someone, but I didn’t see a thing.”

“Brownies,” Lily said numbly as she turned back to watch the timid little brownies charge a creature as long as a football field. “A whole troop of brownies.”

They pelted straight for it. It noticed them—apparently it didn’t need eyes all that much—and swung its head around, opening those jaws once more, lowering its head to the ground. They split into two streams, one group veering to each side of that enormous head—and scrambled up onto it.

The head reared up. And up. They clung to it—its surface wasn’t smooth, after all, being full of stones and sticks and the occasional body part—and they were little and light. They clambered around on its head, then formed a chain, a brownie ladder. The ones at the top of the beast’s head somehow anchored themselves so others could dangle, hands gripping hands or feet, some upside down, some rightside up, all assembling themselves so quickly it was like magic.

Maybe it was magic—of a different sort. One that called for skill, not power.

One brownie climbed down that living ladder . . . which dangled right over the great elemental’s mouth.

That mouth opened wide and wider, a horrible, gaping maw. The elemental flung its head once as if it was nodding emphatically—and the chain of brownies swept out, then in. Right into its mouth. Which closed—but brownies spurted out even as it did. With delicious, desperate speed they shot out, slipped out like watermelon seeds, and scampered down stony, segmented sides. Down and down and . . .

The elemental stopped moving.

“Oh,” Deborah murmured. “Ohh . . . that tasted nasty, but it feels so full now. Content.”

Escape artists, Lily thought. That’s what Rule had called them. Brownies valued nothing so much as a great escape—and oh, what an escape that had been!

Slowly the elemental began to subside. The stony mass lost its shape gradually, even gracefully, clods of dirt, rocks, and sticks breaking loose to fall to the ground as it sank itself back into the earth.

It was gone.

Lily looked toward the east end of what used to be the National Mall. There were a few patches of grass left, but no people. They’d fled or been killed.

Except at the far end. Where the fighting had stopped.

She shivered. He was alive, she knew he was alive, but how badly hurt? How many others were dead? She glanced at Deborah, at Scott so still on the ground. “Take care of him,” she pleaded. And set off at a run yet again.