“For purposes of this database, yes. If we have to export the data, no. It will become umber.” She glanced back at me, glovedfingers poised over glass. Being an aeromancer, she had to be careful who and what she touched.
“What’s his strength level?” she asked.
“What’s the scale?”
“Human to Mallory Carmichael,” Petra said. “And before we argue strongest living sup again, I don’t know anyone else who has squeezed a magical dragon into a katana lately. So…”
But she hadn’t squeezed all of it, had she? I kept the question to myself.
“Physically,” I said, “he’s stronger than human. I’m not sure if he’s stronger than me. Magically, stronger than me or you, but not as strong as Lulu. His magic is very specific, and he’s connected to the roots. They’re a weakness.”
“So you really need axes and pesticides,” Roger said.
“Pretty much.”
Petra nodded, added the information, giving him a straight score of 38 and a magic score of 51. I worked not to ask how many points I’d earned.
“We’ll keep tracking,” Roger said. “And maybe we’ll learn something from the broader data we didn’t know before.”
He clapped his hands. “Now that that’s done, the daytime report. There’s still no unusual ward activity, and there’s no indication the magical pulse had a physical ground zero. I’m leaning toward believing the fae—that it was a hitch in the ley lines—while acknowledging they probably haven’t told us the whole story.”
“The pulse has to be demon related,” I said. “It can’t be a coincidence that we have two busted demon wards and a hitch, as you said, in the thing that powers them.”
“Could a demon have used the ley lines to send a message, maybe?” Theo asked. “To let other demons know the city is available for homesteading?”
“Oh, good,” Roger said dryly. “Demon pioneersandsupernatural colonialism.”
“Yeah, that’s not great,” I said. “But it’s probably simpler to use demonic social media, if that’s a thing.”
Petra snorted. “Human social media is hellscape enough. But I admit I’d check out OKDemon if it existed.”
“This demon wasn’t hiding who or what he was,” I said. “He wasn’t trying to stay undetected and avoid getting caught. He engaged in demonic activity on the street in full view of humans, and he was hurting humans, apparently for the fun of it. I saw no remorse. No shame. No boundaries, except the possibility of death.”
“Upside,” Theo said. “That will make them easier to find and easier to catch.”
I appreciated the determination in his voice, but we were going to need more than determination.
“Let’s check with the sorcerers,” Roger said. “Now would be good,” he added when no one moved.
I pulled out my screen and contacted Lulu’s mom. She’d been Aunt Mallory forever, but I still felt a little awkward calling her directly. Generational difference, I guess. Plus, I had the Egregore.
“Hey, Elisa!” she said brightly, face on-screen. Like Lulu, she was a small woman. She was pale-skinned and blue-haired, and her smile was warm.
“Hey. I’m at work and wanted to check on the wards.”
“Things are moving,” Aunt Mallory said, motioning to someone off camera. “We’re at the warehouse today. The building has been stabilized and the magic in the machine has been reset, and we should be running tomorrow.”
The warehouse housed the demon-detecting machine, one of the two wards Rosantine had triggered.
“Tomorrow?” I said, not a little surprised. I knew she and Lulu’s dad, Catcher Bell, and Paige, the Cadogan House librarian,were skilled sorcerers, but I didn’t know they’d made that kind of progress.
“Tricky bit was translating the language of symbols etched into the metal. Once we got that and figured out what kind of incantation was used, we were able to build back the spell. As soon as the inspector gives us the go-ahead, we’ll kindle it and get her up and running.”
“That’s amazing,” I said, and felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. “What about South Gate?” That was the first ward Rosantine had triggered. I’d been partly responsible for that, and for Rosantine’s making her way into Chicago. Granted, at the time we’d thought she was a supernatural informant on the run.
“That’s taking longer,” Aunt Mallory said. “There’s more structural damage, and we can’t do the heavy magic work until the stone-and-brick guys finish repairing it. It was in worse shape than the warehouse in terms of, you know, standing up.”
“Yeah,” I said, and felt that twinge of guilt again.
