Zero Sum (53 page)

“I saw what happened,” she said quietly.
 

My hand rested over the final buckle. For a single, dirty second, I thought about covering my tracks.

“What you did…well, I just want to say that I know what your intentions were. And…and I think you made the right choice. You saved so many lives.” She looked at me squarely. “Mine included.”

I nodded, feeling a rush of guilt. “You know, to be hung out like this and still able to talk, I’m impressed. You’ve got some serious guts.”

“I have to be strong. My family is counting on me. I’m the first of my line to qualify.”

My throat tightened. It was like I thought. She had the same brown hair, the same sad eyes.
 

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Angela. My name’s Angela Hawthorn.”

“Hawthorn,” I repeated quietly. “Do you by chance have a sister, Angela?”

“Yep,” she replied with a smile. “Two bossy big brothers and one bossy big sister. Do you know her? She goes to school at Boulder.”
 

I turned to Rei. “Pull us up.”

“Pull us up,
please
,” she lectured.

“Are you okay?” Angela asked.

“Yea. Fine. Just a little banged up.”

“It’s just that it looks like you’re—”

“I’m fine,” I said stiffly. “I’m just allergic to heights.”

“Your name’s Resnick, right?” Angela asked. “That’s what that poor man kept calling you.”

Angela knew when to change the subject. I liked her already.
 

“Yea. Dieter Resnick. And this here is my partn—” I yelped as Rei dug into my ankles. “My squadmate and benevolent overlord, Rei Bathory.”

Safe on top of the scaffolding, Angela turned to Rei.

“Nice to meet you, Magus Bathory. My name is Angela Hawthorn.”
 

Angela extended her hand but Rei drew backwards. She bowed curtly instead. Angela seemed to take it in stride, and the three of us made our way back. Angela and I crawled like caterpillars. Rei waltzed. To add to the chaos, my robe refused to behave. It was flopping around manically. Still, with Rei leading our procession, I had a pretty great view. I decided that torn dresses were way better than regular dresses.

“What’s your squad’s letter?” Angela asked over the creaking of the metal.

“Grubs should not ask so many questions,” Rei shot back. She seemed quite grumpy, though I didn’t know why.

“Rei’s right, Angela. You should never ask questions. Questions are dangerous. You might even discover you’re related to someone. That could be rather disturbing.”

Rei put her hands on her hips and frowned. “We are not related, Dieter Resnick. Your kin are Germanic. My kin are Hungarian. And you are quarter blooded at most. Inbreeding is not a concern in our case.”

“Our case?” I asked slyly.
 

Rei replied with a sly kick to my face. “Such innuendo is of your own design, Dieter, son of Kurtz. I merely corrected the facts.”

Angela giggled. “Your ears are red.”

Rei huffed. “Your vision is faulty.”

Safely on the ground, Roster and Sheila led the initiates across the burned-out array. There was little left of the intricate designs that had lit up the sky. I had to give Anna at least some credit—the bitch covered her tracks well. I tracked down Jules next. She was still working on Spinoza. His wounds were severe. His breath came in sickly gasps. I knelt beside him.

“Sir, we completed our mission, but it was a mess. And, sir, I didn’t heed one of your most basic lessons.”

“You aren’t the only one, diablillo.” He gestured to his cracked ribs. “But the job is done. We go home. We drink beer. We laugh. This is good, no?”

I nodded. Being the government’s bitch had
some
benefits. At least we had great fakes.

“Yes, sir, but you’re buying. I’m dead broke.”

Spinoza grinned. “Like father, like son.”

My father had taken a position off to the side. He didn’t look in the mood to talk—and for that I was grateful. But it wasn’t just my father who was quiet. Dante was eyeing the ground, and Sheila had made busy cleaning that impressive broadsword of hers. Funny…the blade looked plenty clean to my eye. Off to the side, I caught Roster kneeling in prayer. That was odd too. He usually saved that stuff for Sunday. I turned to Jules. She was still hovering over Spinoza even though he was good and bandaged.

“Okay,” I said. “I assume we don’t want to still be chillin’ up here when the cops arrive. Shouldn’t we get this show on the road?” No one replied, but someone needed to start giving orders. “Where’s the captain?” I asked. “Ladies room?”

My question was met by further silence.

Dante shook his head and sighed.

“Bud—we lost her. She fell defending the flank.”

My legs didn’t feel quite right. I took a seat on the ground.
 

Monique was graduating this year. Top of her class. Off to Cerberus in the summer.

Rei flinched. She took a seat next to me and huddled into a ball.

“So this is what…” She stared off into the distance. “Dieter, I do not like this.”

“Alright,” Dante said, standing. “Dieter’s right. We have to evacuate and care for our wounded. We’ll have time to mourn later. Jules, I need another translocation circle, please.”

Jules nodded, dug into her robe, and pulled out a crumbled piece of chalk. She picked out the biggest chunk, and with her usual speed, she sketched out the complex pattern for another portal. Dante clicked his receiver and had Maria open it. Collins and Masterson led Sadie and John Riley out first, and the freed initiates followed. Roster, Sheila, and Dante helped my father carry out Spinoza. My father and I didn’t speak a single word. It was better that way, I decided. As Rei followed them out, I tugged on Jules’ dress.

“We’ll meet up with them later. I need to show you something.”

Jules looked confused, but she did as I asked.

I led her up onto the platform and showed her the array. I didn’t go into details. I just told her what had gone off at the end of the cast. She jotted down some of the shapes in her notebook as she went, muttered to herself the whole time. It must have interested her, because she kept scratching her head and twirling her pencil.
 

The day’s events had taken a toll on my body. I plopped down and examined the folds of my robe. The crimson-grey garment had survived tonight’s exploits without a hint of damage. What had Dante said? Crimson was ‘Mars ruled’ or something? Maybe Jules and Dante had been wrong. Maybe my robe actually was enchanted. I looked down at my ruined boots and shrugged. My profession continued to destroy clothes faster than I could replace them. An indestructible robe could save me some serious change.

A few minutes later, Jules returned from examining the array. I looked up at her worn face. Between the burn marks and dried blood, she looked as bad as I felt. Her dress was in tatters, and she was covered in countless tiny wounds. Wordless, she sat down next to me and looked up at the moon.

“Did I void the Earth’s warranty?”

Jules shook her head. “It’s mighty bajanxed, Dieter. I don’t know enough ta say for sure, but it looks like a mix between a summonin’ circle, a counter-hex, and some sorta gate. And I mean a
frame
gate, not just some translocation spell.”

I filled her in, leaving out the part about the voice in my head.

“She claims yer a Dealer?”

“Yea, a Vita Paciscor,” I replied. “I have no idea what that is, but it must have something to do with my mother. In other words, the non-vampire side of the family tree.”

Jules nodded, and her expression grew grave. “No more talkin’ about these topics, Dieter. Not to anyone. Now flip up yer hood and hold yer breath. This be a hard one. I need me focus.”

Jules grew quiet and drew in long and steady breath.
 

I took a step back as her magic crackled through the air.

She raised her hands to the heavens. “Aqua fortis.” She spoke the words through clenched teeth, as though even saying the words was painful.
 

A dark cloud rose up into the air. It twisted and crackled like an angry snake.

“Hold yer breath!” she shouted.

A noxious yellow poison rained down on us. It ate into the cement, destroying the remains of the array. As the mixture of acid and concrete hissed and sizzled, Jules leaned into me and sagged. She placed her weary head on my shoulder, and I held her until the merciful gusts of wind carried away the fumes.
 

Jules’ robe was a tattered mess of holes. I frowned. Aqua fortis, that was the old name for nitric acid. Jules had cast the equivalent of acid rain. For a Druid to perform such a spell…I was pretty sure it was against their religion.

“Jules.” My throat felt like a giant scab. “Don’t you ever—”

Jules covered my mouth with her hand. “Dieter, we Conscious are all haunted by the past.” She spoke into my collar. The warmth of her breath caressed my neck. “Awen willing, a witch’ll live a life of centuries. That’s plenty of time for folly. We shouldn’t have ta carry our parents’ as well.” She lifted her head and struggled to regain her feet. “Now come off it. We were promised a pint, and old Irish legend says yer goin’ ta hell right quick if ya start refusin’ such offers.”

“You know what, Jules?”

“What’s that, Dieter?”

“Screw James Bond. I’ll take Jules with her stick any day of the year.”

She gave me a thousand-watt grin. “Of course ya will, me pupil.” She brushed off the yellow crust that had formed on her tattered robe. “The British may be better at lookin’ pretty, but when it comes time for a real throw down…”

“Irish all the way.”

Jules’ emerald eyes sparkled through all the grime.

“No doubt, Dieter.”

“No doubt, Jules.”

I looked out upon my city, and for the first time this whole wretched night, I found myself thinking about tomorrow.

Chapter 21

 
PENULTIMULOGUE

After our return to Elliot, we learned that the other three IKΛM squads had gone active as well. Iota, Kappa, and Mu had been sent as part of a much larger force secretly inserted into Salt Lake City days before New Year’s Eve. While we had slugged it out in Vegas, Iota, Kappa, and Mu had fought in the battle to defend Salt Lake City. Fortunately, despite the heavy fighting, none of the other squads had suffered a casualty. The newspapers were calling the entire mess “The Battle for the Lake.” Talmax’s forces had been routed, and the victory was all thanks to Iota’s captain, Susan Collins.

It had been the big question of last term: How had Talmax intercepted our initiates en route to campus? How had they known where the initiates would be, whom they would meet, and when? The Magi had many enemies. Transit information was always kept hush-hush. So how had such information been made public? It turned out that early last year, Talmax got a hold of all of the Department of Mana Affair’s encryption standards. They were able to exploit every transmission the Department sent out. The ambushes, the successful hits, the way Talmax predicted DEA battle plans—they were reading us like an open book. How Talmax got a hold of the codes was less clear. The running theory was that the Thompson-Rileys were responsible, but that theory had a problem: The Thompson-Rileys were a respected weft-pair, but they lacked the clearance necessary to obtain DOMA decoder manuals.

If the Thompson-Rileys weren’t responsible, it meant that someone else had been mega sloppy…or complicit in the leak. But in the end, it was all guesswork. With Carrera and his coven dead, we would probably never know the truth. What mattered was that by the time of the Battle for the Lake, DEA Command was fully aware of the breach. The reason why was Susan Collins.

When Susan arrived at her pick-up point last August, her initiate was already under attack. She took a good knock to the kisser and found herself in detention. Lucky for Susan, the wiped Talmax goons couldn’t figure out which one of the young mages was their target. As her captors tried to trace their identities, Susan escaped with all the documents she could carry. How she escaped was the interesting part. The Talmax goons had chained her to a pole. To gain her freedom, Susan decided to cut off her own arm. (Even Rei was impressed by that one.) Susan arrived at Elliot a few hours after we did. She was bleeding profusely, but managed to warn the faculty of the breach.
 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of the mess. The news put DEA Command in a difficult position. If they changed their codes, they could again mask their communications. That would put an end to the ambushes, but their forces were already devastated. If combat continued for much longer, the DEA was set to lose the war by attrition. There was another option, though. If the DEA continued business as usual—if they continued to transmit orders as though they were oblivious to the breach—then perhaps they could use the knowledge to deliver a crushing blow. The trick would only work once, so they would have to make it count. To make matters worse, while DEA Command estimated that they only had enough able-bodied mages for one last offensive strike, combat was raging in two cities: Phoenix and Salt Lake. In Phoenix, the manaflow was weak. This accentuated Talmax’s advantages. In Salt Lake, a sturdy leynode offered the DEA a chance to exploit their magical firepower to its fullest. Pressed into a corner, they had to make a difficult choice. DEA Command decided to go for broke. They didn’t inform their field agents of the breach, and they left their Phoenix battalion to the wolves. It was a harsh call. To the man, the DEA agents in Phoenix fell on their swords. But the sacrifice served a greater purpose. Talmax was left with every indication that the DEA remained totally clueless to the leaks. It made Talmax cocky, and it gave the DEA home court advantage for their final strike.
 

The DEA bided its time throughout the fall. They surrendered Phoenix and then the entire American Southwest. They let their own academies be attacked. They pulled back to Salt Lake and showed every indication they were weakening. And then—in the midst of the Battle for the Lake—the DEA sent out an encrypted message. It was an order for all forces to retreat to the Temple for extraction.