Raven shifted his huge clawed feet. “Not to be a naysayer, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough. When I was trying to find a way inside, I got a look at just how big the Leviathan’s body actually is. I couldn’t do a fly-by in the real world due to the still out-of-control magic, but I did nip into the Heart of the World to take a peek through Shiro’s scrying circle.”
Marci had forgotten all about that. “Of course!” she cried, smacking her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Don’t feel bad,” Raven said. “I have infinitely more experience with being tricky than you do. Anyway, the point is, I finally got a clear look at our enemy’s new guise, and it’s big.”
“How big?” Emily asked.
“Apocalyptically,” the spirit replied, scratching a quick map in the frozen dirt with his claw. “The Leviathan’s body spans the entire Great Lakes region. There’s tentacles from the tip of Lake Superior all the way to the eastern edge of Lake Ontario. The water alone is over ninety-five thousand square miles of territory, and he’s covering the land in between as well. That’s seven states with a sky full of giant flying End Times. Not squirrelly little East Coast states, either. Midwestern ones.”
Myron put his head in his hands. “Then we’re finished,” he said quietly. “Even if everything was ready to go right now, there’s no way we can guard that much territory.”
A horrible silence fell after that. Everyone, even Amelia, was looking at the ground. The only ones who didn’t look as though they’d just heard the drums for their own execution were the seers. Bob didn’t even seem to be paying attention. He was just sitting on the ground with his eyes closed, the lids fluttering rapidly as his eyes moved behind them. Marci dearly hoped that meant he was searching the new possibilities for an outcome where they didn’t all die, but he could have been lucid dreaming for all she knew. The Black Reach, on the other hand, was standing to the side with his arms folded as if he were merely an impartial observer to the end of this drama, which, considering he could leave at any time, Marci supposed he was.
“We can still run,” the construct said when the silence had stretched too long.
“You can run,” Amelia snarled. “We’re still screwed.”
“No one needs to run,” Julius said firmly, turning to smile at Marci. “We’ve got the best minds on the planet working together. We can figure this out.”
Marci blushed at the implied compliment, which was as sweet as it was inaccurate. She’d become Merlin because she had the right attitude for the Heart of the World, not because she was a particularly brilliant mage. That was Myron’s job, and he looked just as stumped as everyone else. It wasn’t that she didn’t have her moments, but for all of her academic aspirations, at the end of the day, Marci was just a regular old Yellow Pages mage. Aside from Ghost, the bulk of her actual experience with magic was in curse breaking, wards, and banishing obnoxious minor spirits like the female tank badger she’d pulled off her and Julius’s last paying client before—
Marci froze, eyes going wide. “What about a banishment?”
Amelia arched an eyebrow. “What about a banishment?”
“You can’t banish a Nameless End,” Myron said at the same time. “They’re not spirits.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Marci said, her voice trembling in excitement as she pointed at the black shape in the sky. “The whole reason that thing is able to be in our plane is because Algonquin’s been hiding it. If that’s true, then it doesn’t matter if the Leviathan himself is a spirit a not. He’s relying on Algonquin’s magic to keep himself hidden, and Algonquin can be banished.”
“That makes a surprising amount of sense,” Raven said, turning his head. “Myron, you’re our expert. Could we banish it?”
“In theory, I suppose it’s possible,” Myron admitted grudgingly. “But it won’t work in reality. There’s a reason Algonquin was never banished. She’s just too big. The circle required to suck all the magic out of the Great Lakes would encompass the entire northern hemisphere, not to mention the mages you’d need to actually use it.”
“How many mages?” Emily demanded.
Myron thought for a moment. “At least a hundred thousand, which is ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and fifty-two more than the current world record for largest casting team.” He shook his head. “It’s not a bad idea, but it simply won’t work on this scale.”
“Not if I did it your way,” Marci said. “But I’m not talking about a draining banishment.” Her lips curled in a smirk. “I’m talking about dropping the hammer.”
Myron’s eyes grew wide, and then he pressed his palm to his face. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why not?” Julius asked. “What’s the hammer? And why can’t she be serious about it?”
Marci opened her mouth to explain, but Myron beat her to the punch.
“There are two methods of banishing spirits from the physical world,” he said authoritatively. “The most common is a draining banishment, which is where you trap a spirit in a circle and suck out its magic until it either surrenders or can no longer maintain a physical form.”
“That’s what I used on all our spirits back when we had our business,” Marci explained.
“Precisely,” Myron said. “Draining banishments are a staple mage tool because they are a safe, reliable, and highly effective method of controlling spirits. Also, draining banishments don’t require you to have any magic on hand beyond whatever was needed to trap the target initially. Since you’re sucking power out of a spirit, the process is always a net positive for the mage, which is fortunate because you often need that magic to fix whatever disaster inspired you to banish that spirit in the first place.”
“But that’s not what she’s talking about doing,” General Jackson said.
“No,” Myron said, shooting Marci a dirty look. “Miss Novalli is referring to the second type of banishment, colloquially known as a ‘hammer banish.’”
“Why?” Julius asked.
“Because that’s exactly what it does,” Marci said, taking over the conversation before Myron talked them out of the idea she hadn’t even explained yet. “The whole point of a banishment is to reduce a spirit’s magic to the point where it’s no longer a threat. Draining banishments do that by sucking magic out, but hammer banishments do the opposite. They work by hitting spirits with so much power, their own magic is blown to bits. It’s like throwing a rock into a puddle. Get a big enough rock with enough force behind it, and you can knock every drop of water out of that sucker, leaving the puddle dry.”
Raven grimaced. “That doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“Oh, it’s horrible,” Marci agreed. “It also takes an enormous amount of magic, which is why most mages never do it. But if you can land a hammer banish, it works instantly, which is its key advantage here.” She glanced at Julius and Chelsie. “Remember when we were fighting Vann Jeger, and it took me forever to banish him?”
“How could I forget?” Chelsie growled. “We both nearly died multiple times.”
The Qilin turned to her in wonder. “You fought the Death of Dragons?”