“If they need a branding iron,” Shiloh said, “that meanssomeone has to be branded and then the layers of thepossessionworking added. If they had Nyoka and Walter, they wouldn’t need the branding iron.”
Understanding of their strategy pulsed through me. “If Nyoka isn’t here,” I said, “then who are the two empty places for? They had to know that vials of elixir were taken from Londyn’s house, and they would have no idea how many went to the queen. So they expect you two, and maybe more, to show up here?”
EJ murmured on comms, “Contingencies. Maybe they knew all of us would come. Maybe they want an Everhart. Maybe they have a mole at the queen’s residence.”
“Unlikely,” Walter murmured, “but not impossible. Evan Junior, what can you discern from your position?” Walter asked. “Is there a ward open over them yet?” he asked.
“No. No ward I can hear.”
“Trap,” Walter murmured. “But what is the trigger? Evan Junior, I see you placed a minicam in the window corner. Please load it.”
A screen opened on my face shield and I enlarged it with a touch to my unicom. Three naked bodies lay in the circle, their arms and legs outstretched in a semblance of da Vinci’sVitruvian Man. Arcane symbols were painted on their torsos and chests. All were male. All were alive, breathing slowly, seemingly drugged or drained into compliance.
Small vessels stood between the knees of each sitting practitioner. Small containment vessels. Six of them.
That meant…
Walter’s cam view vanished and, trusting mysilenceworking, he spoke into the general channel, “Observations: They each have small containment vessels the size of vases. There are multiple bottles of elixir. Opinions: As Angelina said, thevampires want Shilohandme. Two—they have found a way to easily dispossess themselves from the demons and are never permanently possessed. Assumption: they will drink the elixir, let themselves be possessed, then—”
I interrupted, whispering on a private channel, “They aren’t possessed right now? EJ?”
My brother breathed out. “No demon music.”
“Say they get two more participants. What do they intend once they’re all possessed?” I asked. “What do they intend to actuallydo? What do theywant? That’s been one question all along. We said they might want more demons, but since they can reuse them, they have plenty.”
EJ said, “They have a six-point circle. Maybe the maths lets them control other demons, demons somewhere else.”
Thoughtfully, Walter asked, “If they left a second large containment vessel at the queen’s, and if it has a remote detonator, and if the circle does what you suggest, could they possess the queen’s entire estate and everyone on it, from here?”
“And put puppets in the place of the queen and the emperor?” I whispered.
“One attack, two locations?” Walter asked.
“Simple and damn well brilliant. They want us,” Shiloh said. “All of us. They want the queen to know she lost. Ten-to-one odds this is being filmed to her headquarters, or will be the moment we attack. She’ll see her godchildren killed. Then they’ll detonate a containment vessel near the queen’s residence and take over the world.”
Over comms, muffled in the background, the queen cursed, “Crap on a cracker.”
“Bingo bango bongo,” Shiloh muttered joyfully. “I figured you’d be in the sit-room, queenie-poo. Howdy.”
EJ interrupted. “Cam in the window corner. There’s an oversized cookstove and oven blocking my entrance. I’ll have to blast it. I can’t time my entrance.”
Walter and I both said, “Copy that.”
I placed my open hand flat on the garage-type door, and readied awyrd.
“HQ,” Shiloh continued. “Do you copy all this? You need to be ready, just in case they’re at your twenty too.”
“Copy,” several hard voices said in the background. Overlapping orders flew. “Get drones up.” “Brute, shift to wolf. Scout.” “Molly, the moment the drones are up, raise the defenses.” “Cia, Liz, prepare as many portable invertedblood hedgesas you can, to try and contain demons. If there’s a containment vessel on the property that we’ve somehow missed, we need to throw everything we have at them.” “Quint, get the queen’s weapon. The Glob.”
The Glob was the weapon she used to open our world to other dimensions. The thing I had stolen a piece of when I was a kid and never told her.
“How did we miss this possibility?” Uncle Eli demanded. Then, “Walter, Shiloh, kids, withdraw. Now!”
Shiloh said, “Too late.”
I didn’t know what was happening, but, “too late,” was bad. I said, “Pléascadh!” The service door blew open to the sides.
As the doors exploded, Shiloh fell from the ceiling. Directly over Konstantin.
