“When should we move?” Ethan asked.
“Let Mallory get the symbol drawn before you rush in,” Catcher said. “We don’t want him to react too quickly or feel like he has to rush things. He’s dealing with a lot of power up there; one wrong move, and Towerline ends up in pieces on the ground.”
“Do try to avoid that if you can,” my father said, but his voice was kind.
“We’ll do our best,” Mallory promised, then looked at us. “It won’t be immediate—the magic, I mean. We’ve got to draw the marker, build the salt, kindle the magic, then work some more symbols to kindle the reversal. That’s when the countermagic will begin to take effect.”
“How long?” Jacobs asked.
“Not quick,” she said. “There are thousands of lines of code—of symbols—that make up their equation. It’s like a cassette tape—it will take the magic time to rewind.”
Catcher looked at his watch. “Let’s mark the time—it’s nearly midnight, right? I’m going to aim for that.”
We checked our watches, confirmed the time. And when that was done, my grandfather nodded. “We’ll keep you safe while you do it.” He looked at Ethan. “And upstairs?”
“You’ve got the tranqs?”
In answer, the SWAT guy pulled out an enormous hard case, popped the latches. Inside a nest of gray foam were a dozen small silver tubes a little larger than a roll of quarters, with one end tilted ninety degrees. He popped the cap off the end, pointed to an orange button on the side. “You need skin-to-skin contact. Hold the dispensing end against skin—doesn’t matter where—and press the button to engage the tranq. You’ll get results in two or three seconds.”
“How many doses per weapon?”
“Only three,” he said, and handed them out. I tucked mine into the pocket of my jacket. “These are still in R and D, and it’s the best we could do on short notice.”
“We’re happy to take them off your hands,” Ethan said. “That’s potentially thirty-six fewer fatalities.”
God willing, it would be enough.
“We go in,” Ethan said. “Make our way to the elevators, put down everyone that we can. We go upstairs, and we contain.”
The SWAT guy—who I realized hadn’t bothered to introduce himself to us—nodded.
Thunder rolled threateningly as energy spread above us, and we all looked up. The sky was clear of clouds, but tentacles of magic flowed like rivulets across the lines that made up the QE.
“He’s screwing up the ionosphere,” Mallory muttered. “What a douche.”
“For that and many other reasons,” Ethan said.
Backpack in one hand, Mallory turned to me, wrapped her free arm around my neck, squeezed. “Be careful up there,” she whispered.
“Be careful down here,” I said, squeezing her back.
I released her to Catcher. Linking hands, they walked to the curb, and the division between concrete and granite. They blew out a breath and did the thing all heroes must do—they took that terrifying first step.
Mallory walked in front of Catcher, and she seemed impossibly delicate walking into the empty square, Towerline rising like the body of a dark and long-forgotten cryptid in front of her.
A cadre of cops stepped behind them, watched while Catcher and Mallory looked up at the building, then the square, gauging the best location. When Catcher nodded to them, pointed, they moved to form a line between the sorcerers and the building.
She looked at them for a moment, as if adjusting to the possibility their bodies were her shield, then pulled out a thick crayon from her pocket and began to drew a white line, then another, until she’d sketched onto the granite a kind of Bizarro World QE, with the symbols in a different order.
When she was done, she nodded at Catcher, who joined her at the boundary. Together, they stepped carefully inside the middle square. While he held her backpack, she unzipped and unloaded what I’d recognized as an Alchemy Starter Pack—glass bottle, her crucible, a box of matches, a notebook, and an assortment of herbs.
For five minutes they worked, combining materials and pressing them into the crucible, drawing small symbols in the square, and reading words from the notebook. Occasionally, one or both of them looked up at the tentacular magic that flowed above us. The air buzzed with it, so even the steady-looking uniformed cops glanced around, shifted on their feet.
Catcher pulled a match from the box, looked at Mallory, waiting for her nod. When he got it, he flicked it against the box and dropped it into the crucible. Lightning or magic or some combination of both cracked down the building like an explosion, shattering the new columns of windows and sending glass shooting down over us. We ducked as glass rained down.
All hell broke loose.
There was no time to wonder whether their magic was working. The tower’s doors burst open, and supernaturals ran forward.
“Fallon, Jeff,” Ethan called out, and we unsheathed our katanas. “Stay with Mallory and Catcher! Keep them safe!”
And we rushed forward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A SOUL INSPIRED