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“ETA five minutes,” Brittney called out from the front passenger seat.
Brittney was one of our private guards and the only aegis we managed to get on our payroll. The aegis mages were hideously expensive and very selective about who they worked with. Brittney was a Notable, meaning the magic shield she projected would stop an average handgun and absorb quite a bit of rifle fire, but a sniper bullet would go straight through it.
I glanced at the screen embedded in the hull above Alessandro’s head. It showed the feed from external cameras. We were driving through an estate neighborhood, a weird hybrid of rural living and suburbia. Huge houses sprawled on two- to three-acre lots, set way back from the road and protected by walls and gates. An affluent neighborhood. Their biggest battles were likely with their HOA and herds of marauding deer.
“This has to be a big misunderstanding,” Julian said, and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince us or himself. “I can’t imagine Kaylee would hurt her grandparents. It’s just not in that child’s nature.”
Human nature was a tricky thing. Five years ago, all I’d wanted to do was to scurry unnoticed through life, never causing conflicts, never getting into fights. Never drawing attention to myself. Yet here we were.
I had to make sure I didn’t screech.
Alessandro was watching me.
“She has a big heart,” Julian continued. “She was always a good girl. She wouldn’t do something like this.”
I didn’t ask him what “something like this” meant to him. He was too scared to go there. But I did need to redirect him, or he would become a distraction.
“Mr. Cabera, have you checked on your other family members?”
He gave me a startled look.
“You have a large family. We know where your parents are, and we think we know where your brother and your niece are. What about the rest of your relatives? Somebody just targeted the Head of your House.”
The Scarab turned. We were almost there.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.” Julian’s eyes went wide.
“Please make some calls,” Alessandro said. “You can do this from the safety of our vehicle.”
“But don’t you need me?”
Normally I would have jumped at a chance to use an upper-range halcyon in a fight. But Julian’s hands kept shaking. Right now, he needed his own halcyon just to slow his breathing.
“We can fight,” Alessandro said, his voice firm and sincere. “But we can’t track down your family. You know them best. It would help us tremendously.”
“If you’re sure . . .” The relief in Julian’s eyes was painfully obvious.
“Absolutely,” I told him.
He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
The Scarab stopped.
I opened a small box attached to the wall of the cabin, took out two pieces of chalk, and stuck them in my pocket. I doubted they would give me an opportunity to draw an arcane circle, but it was always better to have the chalk than to not.
The view on the screen showed a paver driveway. Kaylee wouldn’t let us get through the doors of the house. She’d want a spectacle in front of an audience and whoever was with her likely preferred to target us in the open. The pavers of the driveway lay close together but not close enough for an arcane circle. The line would be broken. I’d need the screen.
Alessandro unlocked the rear door. Heavy metal clanged and the ramp slid to the ground. Brittney came from the front, dressed in full tactical gear complete with a helmet and bulletproof vest.
“Stay with Mr. Cabera,” I told her.
“Yes, ma’am.”
I undid the Velcro straps securing the roll of the screen to the hull and slid the cloth handles onto my shoulder. Made of dark plastic with several layers, the screen resembled a giant yoga mat, six by six when laid flat. It took the chalk like a dream. Circle mats like this one had existed forever, but common wisdom said that only circles drawn directly on unmoving surfaces, solid ground, the concrete roof of a building, and so on, were actually useful. Drawing a circle on a mat broke the magic continuity and failed to anchor it to the ground. Without that anchor, the circles were just chalk drawings. I had tested it myself, and the drop in power with an unanchored circle was dramatic.
However, last year I saw a recording of a powerful psionic using a mat on the grass. He’d managed to draw a House level circle on it, and it worked well enough for him to frighten hundreds of people into a blind stampede. I’d researched it, and Linus and I made appropriate modifications. The tube under my arm now was prototype #8. It worked, but it weighed almost fifty pounds.
I picked up Linus’ sword. The blade felt clunky in my hand but reassuring all the same. It was also the only weapon Alessandro couldn’t summon. The same inlay that enabled the weapon to generate a null field when primed with magic also short-circuited Alessandro’s powers. He could replicate it, but only as an inert hunk of metal.
