WE DROVE UPSTATE, into the flat darkness of the country, lit occasionally by a small town burning in the distance. Ten black cars, followed by a dozen panel trucks and Econovans larded with Bleeders, winding our way up two-lane highways. I had flashes of memory from when Lugal puppeted me back to the city, and when we turned down a dirt road in the literal middle of nowhere, I could picture the place: a charming white farmhouse, rotten and sunken, all peeling paint and leaking roof and scrawny chickens wandering around.
One by one the cars parked on the wild, overgrown grass in front of the house, random. Apprentices scrambled out to open doors, the woman in the black dress materializing next to the limousine like a hologram flickering into life. Mags leaped out of Fallon’s other car and ran over to me, smiling nervously. I patted him on one massive arm and he ducked his head, happy.
Hiram sauntered behind us, hands thrust into his pockets. When I looked back at him, he just stared at me, expressionless.
“Hang back,” Fallon said easily. “If you will not bleed or be bled, you are of no use in this moment.” He glanced back at Hiram. “Bosch, you old warrior, with me.”
Hiram nodded curtly. I’d never imagined my fat little gasam in the company of some of the most powerful mages in the world, but he seemed right at home, even if everything he was wearing had been stolen from department stores; the rest of them—even the Bleeders—were wearing expensive tailored suits.
They gathered together on the lawn in front of the house, murmuring. Elsa, the girl, cackled every few minutes, drinking from a silver flask. The Glamour, the woman in the black dress, floated serenely; I looked around but couldn’t see the old crone in the wheelchair. There was almost a party vibe until Fallon, face grim, walked briskly to the front of the crowd and held up a hand, looking elegant, ramrod-straight, competent.
Everyone fell silent.
“Lurida Moret!” he shouted, his voice carrying unnaturally, booming and reverberating. “You have been judged!”
“Lem,” Mags whispered, sounding meek and terrified, which was his fourth setting, after confused and angry and hungry. He nudged me and pointed.
There was movement out in the darkness, and a lot of it. People, dozens and dozens of them coming from every direction. They were of all ages, sizes, and colors. Some were dressed in suits, some in uniforms, some in pajamas, some naked. Some walked with the stiff gait of the recently dead, dripping bits of themselves as they shuffled.
“Her Stringers,” I said quietly to Mags. “She’s called them home to fight us off.”
“Lem!”
I nodded—I sensed the gas in the air, too. A giddy deluge of it, enough blood to fuel some deep magic, all for the taking. The night was suddenly filled with voices, ten spells being spun out simultaneously. There was a thrill in the ground under our feet, like something huge waking up, about to shrug off seven tons of dirt and rock and rise up to crush everyone.
“Stay near me, buddy,” I said. “We’re fine.”
As I said it, I knew we weren’t, because I felt a familiar presence pushing against my thoughts. It was cold and massive, a consciousness way beyond my own. Persistent and, I sensed, angry. It was my pal Lugal, summoned back, I suspected, by the Old Bat. I stiffened, panic sweeping through my veins, burning. There was no doubt; it was Lugal. I would know the blank feeling of its presence anywhere, for the rest of my life.
It passed me over.
I was surprised, and then I felt stupid: Of course it had. I was small potatoes. Lugal wanted spells, it wanted knowledge, it wanted the Words, arranged so it could simply compel you to cast it. It now knew that I had no spells to offer, and I was standing twenty feet from some of the most knowledgeable and skilled ustari in the world.
I imagined Lurida, the Old Bat, alone in her little office, knitting, whispering her Words while her hooded Bleeders dropped one by one, bleeding their last as they’d sworn to do years or weeks or moments before. I took a step forward, thinking to warn Fallon, and then froze as a blood-curdling shriek cut through the air. I felt a sudden drain of gas, someone pulling hard from a Bleeder—all the Bleeders, just indiscriminately summoning every drop of blood they could get their brain on.
And then Elsa, the young, cackling girl, rose into the air and began to glow, her lips moving in a constant stream of Words. She began as a silvery shimmer, like a fairy, and slowly brightened, becoming a blinding image of a girl as she hung there, still, peaceful.
Fireballs shot from the crowd at her, immense balls of orange and red and yellow flame that appeared with a pop of displaced, superheated air and rocketed up at her, four streaks that lit up the crowd like noontime. Elsa spoke—Lugal, reaching inside her and moving her lips, working her lungs like bellows—and the fireballs fizzled one by one, raining sparks down onto us.
Mags grabbed my arm and squeezed, and my hand went numb.