Mind Magic (52 page)

Lily stood. “We’ll finish our game later.”

“I win,” Shisti said happily.

“The game isn’t over yet.”

Rule stopped in front of Lily. Dilly pulled his feet out of the loops that served him as stirrups and somersaulted to the ground in one of those casual displays of gymnastic skill brownies excelled at. “Be right back!” he called cheerfully and ran off.

“Important business?” Lily said, eyebrows lifted as she watched the little brownie scamper off.

“He wanted to say good-bye to his husband and children.” Rule lowered himself to sit beside her. “Just in case. His wife’s with Mika, so he can’t see her now.”

Lily took a slow breath and refused to picture what a round from an M16 would do to a little brownie body. Easy to forget how much the brownies were risking on behalf of Mika and The Big Deal—they were so damn cheerful. “Is the ‘potential pit’ going to be useful?”

A quick grin. “Definitely. There are three of them, it turns out. The ground over each is stable now, but if the brownies pull the trigger—I gather Earth magic is involved—they’ll collapse. On another front, I heard from one of the scouts a few minutes ago. Two of them got into the mobile command unit. The tech is new to them, but they’ll do their best to bollix things up. Oh, and we now know the name of the officer in charge. Captain A. A. Martin.”

“That’s who I’ll need to talk to, then.”

He nodded and took her hand, glancing at the iPad, which was still displaying
Town Hall Live.
“Anything significant on the news?”

“The short version is that you got what you wanted. The talking heads are asking all sorts of questions—some of them pretty stupid, but not all. They play the bit with the brownies a lot. Smith may have to back down. People really like brownies. The idea of sending the military against them is raising a lot of hackles. And that,” she added, looking at his frown, “isn’t making you happy at all.”

“Public opinion is turning in our favor, and our enemies haven’t done anything to change that.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“Hmm. How’s your head?”

“Thank God for ibuprofen.” Every time she mindspoke Mika, the headache started up again.

For a few minutes they just sat there, neither speaking. Holding hands. Eventually Rule stirred. “I wish I knew what was going on with Danny. And with Ruben.”

Lily had stopped trying to reach the girl. The last attempt had left her so tired she gave up. The drained feeling had passed, fortunately. “I don’t know how much it will help if Ruben does manage to arrest Smith, not with the Army already at our door. They’ll follow through with their orders. If we could have done it sooner . . .”

“I know.” He squeezed her hand. “Pity Smith didn’t hold off a little longer.”

Off in the distance, thunder rolled—and a dozen brownies cried out.

“What?” Lily looked over at Shisti. “You’re scared of thunder?”

“That’s not thunder!” Shisti’s eyes were wide with distress. “The earth jumped!”

Lily had been in earthquakes. She knew what they felt like. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Shisti rolled her eyes. “You’re a Big Person.”

Maybe brownies could sense movement in the earth that Lily couldn’t. “Can you tell what happened?”

“Yes. The earth jumped.”

“Hellfire,” Rule said suddenly and grabbed the iPad off the ground. He fumbled with the volume control. A moment later Lily heard what Rule had.

“—repeat, this just in. A major explosion has occurred just outside Summersville, West Virginia.”

FORTY-THREE

THE
passenger pickup area was crowded. Mike had managed to edge out another car, though, and pull up to the curb. Ruben Brooks and Dirty Harry were up front with him; Demi sat in back with Twix, Hershey, and Mallum. Ruben had sent one of his men into the airport to look for Abel Karonski, who didn’t know Ruben intended to pick him up.

It turned out that Ruben Brooks wasn’t just a lupus. He was a Rho, like Rule. That was super secret, and Demi had promised not to speak of it to anyone unless she was sure they already knew. His clan was called Wythe, and the man he’d sent to find Mr. Karonski was a Wythe lupus.

The radio was on, tuned to an NPR station. No one spoke.

“. . . train with multiple tankers carrying the highly flammable Bakken crude exploded today just outside Summersville, West Virginia. Troops have been massing in the small town for what is rumored to be an assault on the missing Washington, D.C., dragon, although there has been no official confirmation. The dragon is reputed to now be laired on the brownie reservation, making such an assault highly controversial because the brownies oppose it.

“While it is not yet known what caused the initial blaze which ignited the tankers, the FAA reports a low-flying bogey similar to those seen at three other fires today was spotted near the site of the explosion. Homeland Security has identified that bogey as the missing dragon, an allegation that is strongly denied by the other dragons.

“Firefighters cannot yet approach the blaze and casualties are unknown. The Army has closed access to the entire town, citing safety reasons, and is not responding to questions from reporters. However, reports from both townspeople and on-site reporters indicate that some portion of the assembled troops were within the blast area at the time of the explosion. No Administration officials have yet issued a statement, but Eric Ellison of Homeland Security is expected to speak with the press soon.

“The unique legal position of the brownies and their three U.S. reservations has raised questions about what conditions might permit federal intrusion onto the West Virginia reservation. Joining us now is Jim Debussy, Professor of—”

Ruben stabbed the button that turned the radio off.

Demi broke the sudden silence. “Ruben? What does that mean? Did Mr. Smith kill some more people? Soldiers?”

“Some people consider soldiers infinitely expendable.” He reached for the phone he’d brought. Not his usual phone, but one he’d assured her couldn’t be traced to him. “And that means that I’m going to have to break a few rules myself.”

FORTY-FOUR

“GOOD
work,” Rule told the brownie who’d called, then added to Dilly, “You can hang up now.”

The brownie reservation in West Virginia covered over twenty thousand acres of the roughest, least usable land the government had been able to find. Brownies managed to grow hay for their horses, as well as apple, pear, and peach trees in spite of the thin, rocky soil, but even their earth-based magic couldn’t make it support most crops. The Appalachians had never been good farming country.

That rough terrain was their first line of defense. There had been two possible entry points for vehicles. Now, Lily thought, there was only one. “The bridge is down?”

“Yes. They’ll have to either come in where we want or abandon their vehicles.”

Rule had recalled almost all the scouts. He and Codger had other jobs for them, such as taking down that bridge. The brownies still hoped their wards would stop the soldiers, but they were taking preparations for an armed invasion seriously.

Lily had contacted Mika when they first heard about the fire. The dragon had told her to quit worrying about a few soldiers, and no, she hadn’t started that blaze.

Lily believed her. Even if Mika could send fire to a location that far—and she might be able to; Lily had no idea what the limits were on dragons’ use of fire—the radar bogey was obviously a fabrication. Also, it was probably impossible to use mindspeech to lie. Sam had said it was, and Lily had checked by having Rule and Jason lie to her while she mindspoke them. The ripples returned gibberish.

Dilly, perched on Rule’s back once more, had just slid his phone into his backpack when it chirped again. “Yes? Okay!” He held it to Rule’s ear. “For you.”

“This is Rule.” He listened briefly. “All right. You know what to do.” A pause. “That’s right. Hamp’s troop is to report to Codger at the gate. Pass the word. Dilly, hang up now.”

“Showtime?” Lily said. Her voice was steady, which surprised her. They were about to go to war with the United States Army.

“The first of the IFVs just turned onto SR 670.” Rule looked to one side. “Jason!”

The young man acting as Rule’s second broke off his conversation with two of the brownies and loped toward them.

Lily reached for the AK-47 she was loath to use, slipped the strap on her shoulder—and winced.

“What’s wrong?”

“Mika.” The dragon wasn’t just brushing against Lily’s mind this time. She was jabbing. Hard. Lily rubbed her temple and let her mindsense unfurl, reaching for that compelling mind . . . “What do you want?”

The answering ripple was clear and simple:
Come now.

“The soldiers are coming now. Even if they don’t worry you, the Gifted guy I told you about should. He may be with them—the one with a form of TK that lets him kill at a distance. I need to order the commanding officer to—”

Brownies fool soldiers, Rule Turner kills soldiers. You come.

“There are a lot of soldiers. Nearly a full company. That’s too many to—”

COME!

“
But if—”

Something wrenched at Lily’s mind, or was it Mika’s mind? She couldn’t tell, but
something
was wrenched open and emotion flooded in. Need—overwhelming, imperative. Demand—wordless, insistent. And almost lost in the torrent of feeling, Mika’s voice, not clear at all, but small and raw.
My babies.
Efondi
, my babies need you.

A dozen brownie shrieks split the air, followed by a dozen brownie voices crying out the same thing: “The wards! The wards are gone!”

Lily stared at Rule. Her hearted pounded. “I have to go to Mika. I have to go now.”

His eyes were dark with the same conflict she felt. “Go. But”—a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth—“stay in touch.”

She started to slip the rifle off her shoulder.

“No. Keep it. If they get as far as Mika’s lair—”

“If they do, we’re screwed anyway.” But she kept the rifle, hesitated one more second—then grabbed him and kissed him once. Quickly, but like she meant it. “Don’t die.” And she took off at a run.

Charles took off with her. She told him to stay behind, that Mika wouldn’t tolerate him in her creche and he couldn’t come with her.

Charles didn’t listen worth a damn.

She headed for the entrance to the creche, not the tunnel they’d used to escape. Gandalf had told her how to get there. That entrance was at ground level from the outside, but it would open onto a sheer twenty-five-foot drop to the floor of the creche. There was a rope ladder for Lily to use, but wolves can’t use rope ladders. She explained that to Charles in panting breaths as they ran.

Of course, wolves could jump twenty-five feet, but surely Charles wouldn’t be that crazy.

She hated leaving Rule to deal with the soldiers Mika had so cavalierly dismissed. Sure, let the brownies trick them, then Rule could kill some. Never mind how many lupi might be killed in the process, or what the consequences would be. Mika could massacre the rest when she got around to it.

And it would be a massacre. Two hundred soldiers armed with assault rifles were serious overkill when pitted against eleven lupi—and that left out the IFVs with their machine guns and cannon. Rule believed the brownies could seriously slow them down, even stop some of their vehicles altogether, but eventually a lot of soldiers would reach the creche.

Where they’d face a dragon. And die.

Unless Mika died before they arrived.

The red dragon was impaired, unable to use telepathy, ensorcellment, or any other form of mind magic, including mindspeech. It was Lily’s mindsense that allowed them to communicate, not Mika’s. The one thing Mika could still do, it seemed, was find Lily’s mind and poke at it until Lily opened communication between them. But the dragon didn’t need mindspeech to kill a couple hundred people. Fire would do just fine.

Did Smith know that? Was Nicky nearby, prepared to start slicing and dicing a mother dragon so Smith’s troops could claim the eggs?

The wards were down. Soldiers could enter the reservation. Nicky might already have done so.