Page 24

CHAPTER 24

W e were pretty relaxed after a good meal and a beer.

“This is the best day of my life,” Jodi said, hugging Hans as we left the café. “I wish I could go to the university here.”

At sixteen, Jodi had already been accepted at the Colorado School of Mines, one of the best science institutions in the world.

“What about Mines?” I asked her. “University of Zürich is a good school, but you’re not going to get the top professors in math and physics here. Besides, your German is almost non-existent.”

She frowned at me. “I can read German.”

“She can piece together technical research papers with the help of a German-English dictionary,” I told Hans. “She can barely say hello or order a hamburger, let alone understand a university lecture.”

“Technicalities,” Jodi retorted.

That was when we ran into the Knights. Half a dozen of them blocked the street in front of us, and more came from a side street. I immediately weaved a shield and extended it to cover Jodi. I felt Hans cast his own shield.

“Something we can do for you?” Hans asked in a conversational tone.

Four young men in Enforcer uniforms made their way to the front of the Knights’ line. Roland Müller and three of his lackeys.

“Hello,” he called in a cheerful voice. “Oh, look, it’s the cute little redhead who’s too good to dance with me. And Captain Le Pen’s mistress.”

“Good to see you, too, Roland,” Hans said. “The ladies need to get home, if we may.”

“I didn’t tell you no,” Jodi said. “They wouldn’t let me dance with you.”

I gave her a sharp look and saw something in her face I didn’t like. She winked at me and stepped forward, crossing the distance toward Roland.

“We could get to know each other,” Jodi said. “It’s always good to make new friends. But we really need to get home. My guardian will worry.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Roland said with a sneer and reached for her. As soon as he roughly grabbed her arm, his arm combusted. The way it happened startled me. Jodi reached for a ribbon of fire in the ley line, wrapped it around his arm, then triggered it. She did it in less than a second. He screamed, and Jodi backed away from him.

Oh, shit! Outnumbered fifteen to three—for a moment, I found it hard to breathe.

Turning toward the line of Knights, she pointed her finger, and a blowtorch of white-hot flame blanketed the nearest Knight.

I rushed toward her, drawing my katana . The first Knight I encountered was slow casting his shield, and I cut him down. The next one parried my blade, but I took a step closer, and my riposte sliced through his shield and took off his sword arm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hans engage with two of the Knights. On my other side, two of the Enforcers had rushed toward Roland and were standing there watching him in horror. In the back of my mind, there was a vague curiosity that the fire hadn’t spread. Only his arm burned. The other Enforcer had drawn his sword and advanced on Jodi.

She scoffed at him and calmly bathed him in fire. His shield held, but after a moment, he began retreating. I was sure the heat was penetrating his shield even if the flames weren’t. She turned her attention to the Knights in the side streets.

“Run!” I screamed as two Knights advanced on me. “Damnit, Jodi, run!”

To my relief, she did, sprinting back the way we had come.

I fought my way to Hans’s side. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, while skewering one of the Knights harassing him. He was more receptive of my suggestion than Jodi had been and started backing away from the Knights in front of him.

With him being right-handed and me left-handed, we worked together well, backing down the street as fast as we could. Hans sporadically blasted the Knights trailing us with bursts of hurricane-force wind, which kept them off balance.

I wished I had some kind of offensive magic and frantically tried to think of anything Master Adolphus had taught me that I could use.

I looked inside the body of the Knight closest to me, and as I did, I was hit with a feeling of disorientation. Trying to keep my footing and process the street around me—while also having my consciousness inside another person—was such a surreal experience, and a wave of nausea hit me.

I saw his heart and reached for it with my magic. I squeezed it, almost as a reflex, trying to steady myself. He grunted, froze in place, then fell to the cobblestones. I retreated back to the reality around me and saw the Knights following us hesitate. They stared at their compatriot, dead on the ground without a mark on him.

A pretty good trick, but not one I could use against five men at the same time. Besides, the toll it took on me wasn’t inconsequential. I wasn’t sure I could maintain my bearings—let alone my consciousness—and do it again.

Then what I’d done really hit me, and I had to stop while I puked up my dinner. I was really light-headed and leaned against the wall next to me. Hans came to me and grabbed my right arm.

“Are you okay?” he asked in English.

“Ja,” I replied in German and took a deep breath.

One of the Knights sent a fireball at us. Another fireball whooshed past us from behind. It hit the first fireball, and the street filled with flame. I could no longer see the Knights through the inferno.

“Come on!” Hans said, jerking me into a stumbling trot beside him.

My head cleared, and I managed to make my legs obey me again. I looked up to see Jodi standing about fifty feet in front of us.

“Jodi! Run!” I yelled. She turned and ran away from us.

Hans looked over his shoulder. “They aren’t keeping up.”

“They may be trying to flank us. I hope you know these streets better than I do, because I don’t know where I am.”

He did, and Jodi was obviously more in command of her senses than I was. The next thing I knew, he was urging me up the front steps of the Guild Hall.

The doors were locked and warded. A coterie of guards inside verified our identities, then called someone. Eventually, they opened a small door to the side of the great doors and let us in. Even then, the area we occupied was warded to keep us from leaving that small space.

One of my phones rang. The display showed that Master Adolphus was calling, and I answered it.

“Where are you?” he asked without preamble.

“At the Guild Hall. We’re waiting on Colonel Sorento. They won’t let us inside until he vouches for us. What’s going on?”

“A coup. Nikolas Müller has taken over the Kanton’s government and placed half of the councilors under arrest. The Kantonspolizei are under his command, and any dissenters in their ranks have also been arrested. He’s announced an alliance with the Universal Church and the Knights.”

“We just had a run-in with a handful of Knights and some Enforcers,” I said.

“A faction inside the Guild has announced they will cooperate with Müller’s new government,” the Master said. “That includes some sympathetic Enforcers. Stay there. I’ll come get you.” He hung up.

After a twenty-minute wait, Colonel Sorento showed up and took us with him to an office on the third floor. Captain Le Pen and a number of other senior Enforcement officers were there, holding a council of war.

We sat and listened until a knock on the door was followed by Master Adolphus’s entrance. He said hello to several of the people there, then motioned for Jodi and me to come with him.