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“She was not wearing a sigil necklace,” I said ruefully. “Or anything else with a sigil on it.”
“Knew that would have been too easy,” she said, “but had to ask.”
“Let’s go take a look at the ward,” Roger said.
***
We walked together back to the warehouse. That’s when I realized Jonathan Black was gone. In fairness, he didn’t need to be here. We’d moved on to the investigation part of the drama, and he didn’t have any lines in this particular scene. But it was weird that he hadn’t said goodbye. I still didn’t have a read on him, lifesaving or not.
Gwen walked beside me. “Officer Glenn said it was your idea to set up the triage area. Nicely done.”
“Thanks. I had good training,” I said, and meant that literally. Roger had made us watch a video produced by Homeland Security on responding to paranormal attacks. He’d sprung for doughnuts, and I was still finishing the first glazed when the speaker got to establishing a treatment zone for humans.
A dozen cops were posted outside the police tape that surrounded the warehouse. Protecting people from the machine and the machine from the people.
Gwen had ordered stands of floodlights, which were now shining through the empty window frames to illuminate the machine inside it. The building’s doors had survived the initial blast, so the CPD had to pull a ram to blow down the door. When it was open and out of the way, we walked inside. Glass and metal crunchedunder our feet, and the air smelled of dust and oil and heat. Like a cast-iron skillet ready to char.
I’d expected to see a jagged breach in the roof where the light had punched through, but the builders had planned for that. A sliding metal cover was currently pulled back from the opening where the shaft of light had risen into the city. Remnants of magic still peppered the air, and I could smell sour milk again. No cold. No ghosts. But an olfactory echo of whatever the Guardians had done.
The warehouse was three stories, but the middle of each wooden floor had been cored out to make room for the machine that rose nearly to the roof. It was easily twenty feet across—a complicated nest of metal gears, levers, and pistons. The components looked to be made of iron, with fittings in silver and gold and probably thousands of rivets holding it all together.
Roger whistled. “This is—I suppose the word would be ‘impressive’?”
“Imposing,” Theo said, neck craned and squinting as he peered up at the machine. “There’s just... so much of it.”
“How did they do this in 1872?” Gwen asked, directing the beam of a flashlight to a set of golden gears near the top of the machine. “And how long did it take them?”
“Depends on whether they used magic,” I said. Although I didn’t know what kind of magic could form the components of a giant machine, assemble them with what looked like obvious care and skill. “However they did it, it looks like they did it well.”
“It’s lasted more than a century,” Connor agreed.
“I’m a tech person,” Petra said, glancing around. “But Victorian machinery isn’t my bag. Can anyone else help interpret this?”
“I’m no engineer,” Connor said. “But I work on bikes. I know my way around an engine.”
“Then let’s interpret,” Petra said. She put her hands on her hips, frowned at the machine.
“So,” Connor began, “we’re looking at a machine that generated a pillar of light and sent out lightning when triggered.”
“Keep going,” Petra said.
“You’d need a sensor—something that could identify the demon or Sups in the first place, and possibly track them once the machine is on. And you’d need a source of power.”
“Ley lines,” I said, thinking of Black’s comment. “The wards probably used ley lines to maintain a ready state and power them up if and when she got close.”
“Damn,” Petra said. “I bet you’re right. I think the north-south line runs pretty close to here. But you’d need something to transfer that energy into the machine.” She frowned. “The ley lines are, like, powerful, though. I don’t know how you could just slap a machine on top of one.”
Connor smiled. “So you’d need a transformer—something that could make the energy usable by the machine.”
“Exactly!” Petra said. “And you’d need a component that would change the energy created by the machine into visible light—since that’s its weapon.”
“That’s a lot of tech for the Victorian era,” Roger said. “They were a steam-engine society.”
“Yeah,” Petra said, “but magic cures a lot of ills.”
“Lis,” Connor called out, and I moved to where he stood, pointing at a flat iron panel that covered some other moving parts. Petra was already crouched and taking pictures of the symbols that had been etched into the metal. There were two rows, with maybe twenty symbols in each row, one above the other, and neatly engraved in a tall, spindly script. Each symbol was made up of two or three lines, dots, or circles.
“Part of the spell,” I guessed. “Something used to power the machine or give it instructions or link magic to metal.”
