Page 43

CHAPTER 43

I stood on the Platz next to the Liebfrauenkirche and watched as a circle of thirteen master mages held hands and began to pull power from the ley line.

A company of Knights Magica had been guarding the church, but magical attacks from a band of Enforcers had forced them to abandon their positions. The last effort the Knights made was to spray machinegun fire into the square, but a huge fireball and several energy beams took out the gun.

The magic from the ley line flowed through the mages, and Master Adolphus wove the different threads into a pattern unlike anything I’d ever encountered. The weaving settled around the church and sunk into the ground.

I felt vibrations through my feet and heard a distant rumbling sound. The sound built, louder and louder, and the church began to shake. At first, it seemed as though it was sinking into the ground, but then I realized that the walls were dissolving from the ground up. The building grew shorter, dust rising and obscuring my view, and finally, it completely collapsed, leaving the roof sitting on a pile of rubble.

Master Adolphus unwove the magic, and it flowed back into the ley line. The masters in the circle let go of each other’s hands, and silence fell on the square. Other than the dust—gently blowing in a slight breeze—nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. I knew there had been people in the church—the Knights defending it, at the very least—but I heard no screams of pain, no calls for help.

“What about the archbishop?” I asked Captain Le Pen, who stood beside me.

“His head was shipped off to the Prelate this morning.”

My stomach lurched. I had met the archbishop only a couple of times. A quiet, gentle man with kind eyes.

“It all seems so violent, so savage,” I said.

“It’s war. It’s what the Church and the Knights have been doing to the strigoi, the lycans, and even the Guild in other places. The Knights turned artillery on the Guild Hall in Vienna.”

“Wasn’t it shielded?”

“Oh, yes—but the intention was there. The area around the Guild House now looks a lot like the Langstrasse . The civil authorities and property owners aren’t happy about it.”

* * *

I found it shocking how quickly the Guild and its partners in governments moved. Once they decided to take action, it was an avalanche falling on the Church and the Knights. Two major battles between the Knights and Enforcers—who were backed by the German army—outside Munich and Berlin crushed the Knights’ power in that country.

Across Europe, more than a dozen archbishops lost their heads, and twenty-six churches—including some world-famous cathedrals—were destroyed. Members of the Knights were arrested and confined. Radio and television controlled by the Church was shut down.

An army of Enforcers on its way toward Venice met a force of Knights south of Milan, Italy, and scored a decisive victory. The Knights were dug in with earthworks and artillery, but the Enforcers deployed more than three hundred geomancers, and the ground swallowed the Knights in their fortifications.

The next day, a coup in Venice deposed the Prelate, who had originally risen from the Order of Knights Magica. Those who took power asked the Guild for a ceasefire.

Hans and a contingent of thirty Enforcers from Zürich were deployed with the army in Italy. When he returned, he told Colonel Sorento that he was leaving the Enforcers.

“The carnage, the utter senseless loss of life,” he told me. “I can’t do it anymore. Far worse than that mess in the Langstrasse. Just stupid.”

He said he was going camping in the mountains to clear his head. Two days later, he took a train south to his family’s home.

During all of this, I worked with Master Mikhail, two of his apprentices, and another spirit mage, making spell-forged swords and other weapons. That lasted only a couple of weeks before demand fell off.

And then, it was all over. The Church signed an amended version of the Compact and disbanded the Order of Knights Magica. That wasn’t well-received in some places. The governments in Italy and several countries in Latin America were basically controlled by the Church and the Knights. In two countries, civil wars broke out. But for the most part, the new Prelate in Venice prevailed.

I was stunned with how quickly it all happened, and how quickly it ended. For the first time, I realized how much power the Guild actually wielded. I think the world realized it as well.