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I knew we’d reentered the real world when an explosion went off almost in my face. I froze, staring at a wall of fire exploding against a shield that hadn’t been there a second ago, but which was saving my ass right now. The fire licked around the bright blue bubble of Pritkin’s armor, trying to consume it and us, but flickered out after a moment in a wash of steam as the water element swallowed it whole.

And put it out.

“ Shield, shield, shield! ” Pritkin was yelling, but other protection spells were already blooming across our party. The witches threw a gold one over themselves and Alphonse, Enid shielded herself and ?subrand in green, Bodil was outlined in a darker sapphire than Pritkin used, but which seemed to do the trick, and Mircea—

“ Mircea! ” I screamed, and Pritkin threw our shield outward at the same time Enid did hers, almost crushing Mircea between them.

But Pritkin managed to pull him inside, and we all hunkered down while another barrage fell around us, with chaos raging outside the thin bubbles of our spells.

For some reason, our allies had decided to focus their attack, not on the edges of the city as they’d planned, but in the center. Or maybe they were doing both; I couldn’t tell with explosions hitting down everywhere, buildings crumbling, and shards of glass, concrete, and faux stone thick enough to count as a hailstorm threatening to bury us alive. And people screaming and running and getting brought down by what amounted to a dozen daggers in them as soon as they moved, because this was not survivable!

“What the fuck!” I saw rather than heard Alphonse say, as a bunch of tunic and sandal-clad types like ourselves, probably some of the gods’ human servants, were nailed to the roadbed by a cluster of wooden splinters as big as saplings.

And that seemed to be enough for Mircea. He snatched me up from the crouch I’d instinctively sunk into and yelled at Pritkin. “ Let’s go! ”

“In a minute!” Pritkin was looking around wildly as if trying to get his bearings, like that was remotely possible in this!

“No, now!”

“I don’t know where we are yet!”

“And a delay will change that how? ”

Pritkin didn’t answer, but a blue, 3-D, map-like grid of the city popped into the air a moment later. It was fritzing in and out, probably from all the magic being tossed around, but he finally stabilized it enough to figure something out. Because after staring at it for a second, he abruptly took off.

“Come on!” he yelled over his shoulder, and everyone came on. All of us scurrying through the streets hunched over protectively, not that it helped. The shields were the only things keeping us alive, and I didn’t know how much longer they’d hold.

Because this was a magical barrage.

A palm tree vanished to our right, not going up in flames so much as disappearing into thin air from a nearby explosion. It shook our shields and collapsed the buildings on both sides like dominoes, spilling debris into our path and sending more bouncing overhead, with some of the spinning pieces being larger than me. I stared at them as we ran through the middle, until the clouds of dust that accompanied them coated the outside of our shields so thickly that I couldn’t see anymore.

Pritkin did something that cleared them off, but that only showed me a billowing yellowish storm on all sides, punctuated by screams, explosions, and quakes, the latter shaking the road under my feet. We somehow stayed up anyway, which was good since a cracking sound was our only warning before the street itself erupted, carved down the middle by some blast from far enough away that I couldn’t tell it apart from all the rest. But the result would have swallowed us whole if Mircea hadn’t thrown us to one side.

We hit the ground, and I looked across the street to see the rest of our party doing the same, while the edges of the roadbed speared upward between us in a long, jagged line. And then I wasn’t seeing them anymore, but not because I’d looked away. A metal shard had come out of nowhere and pierced our protection, dripping with a glowing orange curse and coming within a whisper of taking out my right eye.

Mircea swore and jerked me back, and Pritkin tossed a shoulder, sending the evil thing flying back out again, but the fact that it had gotten in at all…

“Do you know where we are now?” Mircea yelled at Pritkin.

“Yes!”

“Then let’s go!”

We scrambled back up with the ground still bucking like an angry horse and took off, the witches and fey right on our heels. I had no idea how Pritkin could see well enough to orient himself, map or not. The city was quickly turning into a giant debris field, and nothing looked familiar.

But he seemed to know where he was going, only it wasn’t to Dante’s.

A moment later, we burst through the door of a wrecked and burning souvenir shop, which must have sold ice cream once upon a time as well as tacky Vegas trinkets, because the empty tubs were still in place behind the dusty counter. As cover went, there wasn’t much here, with magical fire eating holes through the suspended ceiling. And trying to do the same to my head, until Pritkin and Mircea grabbed my arms and all but carried me into the back of the shop.

It was a little better here, with whatever was consuming the front not having gotten this far yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Smoke billowed in the doorway behind us, making it hard to breathe, and sparks were threatening to set alight the debris-strewn floor and stacks of wooden pallets blocking a large walk-in freezer. They held long-rotten vegetation for the sandwiches the shop had also sold, I guessed, catching sight of a diagram on the wall of how to assemble a BLT.

Put the avocado between the bacon and lettuce, to keep the hot side of the sandwich separate from the crisper toppings—

Cut it out! Bodil snarled, jerking me back to the present.

Enid was babbling something in another language and clinging to ?subrand, while looking around like she couldn’t believe we’d made it this far.

“My shields are goddamned wrecked,” Topknot snarled. “What the hell is Jonas about?”

“Those were Forbidden spells,” Gray Curls added breathlessly. “They had to be!”

“I guess the gloves are off,” Butch Cut said, looking shaken.

“Where is that bastard Hansen?” Alphonse demanded.

I looked around, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. Of course, I couldn’t see much with a new wave of smoke hitting me in the face. “Hansen!” I gasped, but heard nothing back.

“He can’t even die, and he left us? ” Alphonse snarled.

Yeah, it looked that way.

Where are we? Mircea asked mentally, to be heard over another world-shaking explosion from somewhere nearby.

That’s what I’m trying to figure out , Pritkin said, staring around the room as if looking for something. Something I guessed he didn’t find, because the map was back a second later, still fritzing like mad, but he finally got it steady enough to point to a glowing yellow dot—us, I assumed. And, shit.

It’s only a few more blocks to Dante’s , Zara said weakly, and yeah. Even her mental voice didn’t sound convincing.

A few blocks? That was ?subrand. We won’t make it a few feet! Enid’s shields are almost gone!

I’m sorry! I’m sorry! The shaken redhead said. I’ve never seen spells like those!

Few have , Pritkin said grimly.

What the devil is Jonas doing? Topknot demanded, still looking furious.

I asked them to pull everyone off Dante’s , I told her miserably . I probably should have specified by something other than knocking it down.

They’re trying to confuse the gods , Mircea said. And leave them no idea where to focus their attention.

Yeah, but while they’re doing that, they’re blowing us up, too! Alphonse snarled. And some of us don’t have shields!

We’ll protect you , Purple Hair promised.

You’ll try, sweetheart. But no way your magic lasts that long. Not in that! He gestured savagely at the door while looking at Pritkin. Will yours?

Pritkin didn’t answer, maybe because he was no longer listening to our little freak-out. Instead, he was staring from the map to the dented and schedule-covered walk-in freezer door. Somebody named Carlos had called in sick, and somebody else had been annoyed enough to scribble te jode Carlos underneath his shift in green ink that had stood the test of time.

And then the whole shop—what was left of it—shook violently, as something exploded close enough to send a debris cloud billowing in at us thick enough to coat everything with a fine white powder.

Help me! Pritkin said out of the fog, and for a moment, I didn’t know what he meant. We all needed help!

But then he dropped his shields to start pushing pallets and boxes aside frantically, shoving them away from the freezer door. It was a testament to how bad things were that even the vampires didn’t ask why. Everyone joined him while the street outside was swept by a wind so hot, I thought it was going to melt my hair.

But the door proved to be jammed even once we had it cleared, and wouldn’t open. Until Mircea shoved everyone aside and ripped the entire heavy, insulated thing off its hinges. “Yeah!” Alphonse said. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

And just like that, we were in, although why we were, I didn’t know, as this was exactly what it appeared to be: a freezer that hadn’t been opened in fifty years. There was a yellowed plastic strip curtain, steel racks on the walls, tubs of dried-up sludge on the shelves, and, worst of all, a group of skeletons slumped in the corner, one human and three rats. They must have gotten trapped in here when the world went to hell, I thought dizzily, or came in looking for refuge, and then the door stuck and they couldn’t get out.

I wanted to look away, but I kept staring at the still-legible nametag on the rotted top of the employee’s uniform. It said Jeff. I wondered if he was the guy mad at Carlos.

I wondered if my brain would just shut the hell up.

Mircea pulled the no longer attached door shut behind us, wedging it in the gap, and turned on Pritkin. Explain .

The Corps was worried about protecting the Pythia after the Dark Circle attacked Dante’s in broad daylight , Pritkin said hurriedly. What they called the Battle on the Drag. They almost killed Cassie and her court before we could get there, and in fact would have done so but for her court’s resilience and her own ingenuity—

And some reporters , I added shakily. They helped, too .

Yes, but the battle was too close to be acceptable, and opened the Circle’s eyes to the fact that the war was changing, and they had to change with it. They thereafter cut a portal from their temporary HQ in the desert to Dante’s to allow them to reach Cassie faster in an emergency—

He’s talking about the shoe warehouse , I added, because all this was fifty years ago from Mircea’s perspective. Where I fought the Mindless .

And how does that help us now? Mircea demanded. That building was destroyed!

But the portal may not have been , Pritkin said. It was closed off, sealed up for the last fifty years, with no one around to use it. And closed portals—

Don’t technically exist in our world , Mircea said, his eyes widening.

So why the fuck didn’t we just use that? Alphonse demanded. You mean we came all this way when there was a perfectly good portal just sitting out there?

Sitting out there under a pile of debris from the collapsed building, and with gods patrolling the area , I said. I sent Billy to check it out last night. They must expect me to come back there—

So you thought this would be easier?

“It was supposed to be!” I said out loud, because I’d been thinking the same thing.

“The point is, the portal came out here,” Pritkin said. “Right here. The Corps ran this place as a front—”

“Which would be great, except that we don’t need shoes!” Alphonse raged. “We don’t need to get to the damned desert, we need to get to Dante’s— ”

“Shut up,” ?subrand yelled. “Just shut up! He’s trying to tell us something!”

“I’ll shut you up,” Alphonse began, before Mircea twitched a hand. It wasn’t much of a gesture, but it worked. Maybe because Alphonse remembered what had happened the last time he challenged him.

“Your point?” Mircea said, looking at Pritkin.

“The portal was originally cut all the way to the casino,” Pritkin said. “I checked with Jonas yesterday. But after what happened in Hong Kong, the Corps rethought that plan—

“What happened in Hong Kong?” Enid asked, looking worried. Probably because she didn’t know where Hong Kong was. As far as she knew, it could be a block over.

“A group of the gods’ servants tried to reroute power from a ley line sink to flood the portal system, hoping to destroy anything connected to it,” Pritkin said. “Specifically, they wanted to take out some of the vampire senates, as most of them had portals.

“The attack was stopped, but the Corps took the lesson and decided it was too risky in the current climate to carve a conduit directly through the casino’s protections. Instead, the last section was blocked off, and the mouth redirected here, a safe distance away—”

“Safe,” Alphonse and ?subrand muttered together, then looked at each other in surprise.

So nice to see they were making friends, I thought grimly.

“Where?” Mircea said.

“Right here. Probably on that wall,” Pritkin said, pointing at the only one without shelving. “I need to see if I can reignite it.”

“And it’ll take us straight to Dante’s?” I asked, clutching his arm.

“It should.” He thought for a moment. “Or it will backfire on top of us. You should probably wait outside...” His voice trailed off.

“This portal, it is powered by a talisman, yes?” Bodil asked, an eyebrow quirking.

Pritkin sighed. “A talisman powers it, yes.”

“Then, after fifty years of accumulated power, if it backfires, it will take out the entire block,” she said dryly. “I do not think waiting outside will help.”

Alphonse had some colorful phrases to reply to that, and this time, Mircea didn’t stop him. Maybe because he agreed. But all he said, looking at Pritkin, was, “Can you do it?”

“Yes.”

It was stark, with no qualifiers, and I suddenly felt my spine unclench. Despite looking like Rambo half the time, Pritkin had a scholar’s mind and usually qualified everything, hedging his bets because there were few absolutes in the world. But apparently this was one of them.

“I will help,” Bodil announced, and he didn’t argue.

“The Lady Bodil is right,” he cautioned the rest of us. “Talismans are usually drained on a regular schedule if not used, to prevent… complications. This one has not been. The portal will be powerful.”

“In other words, prepare your buttholes,” Alphonse muttered, and I felt mine clench. Or maybe that was over a new barrage outside, as I guessed Jonas had decided there was still something left around here to kill.

The rest of us gathered in a knot over by the door, with the witches casting protection spells that I sincerely hoped we wouldn’t need. Pritkin and Bodil put their heads together, muttering stuff I could almost but not quite hear over the thumping of my heart, the boom, boom, crash, boom , from outside, and the rattling of the metal shelving that was almost constant now as Jonas worked on wiping this part of the city clean off the map.

Then Pritkin’s spell took, just that fast, before I or my butthole was remotely prepared. The entire back wall of the freezer disappeared, and—shit! We had a split second to stare at a swirling maw as red as hell before the portal grabbed us, hard and fast, like a starving giant throwing us down its throat.

And throwing hard. This was no simple transition, like walking through a doorway, as was the case with the more expensive portals, or even riding a rushing river of power like with the illicit sort that smugglers often carved into Faerie. No, this one literally made my soul feel like it was being sucked out of my body as I went flying through the bloody mouth as violently as being thrown out of an airplane.

There was an instant of “oh,” a second of “auggghhhh!” and a brief sensation of weightlessness. And then I was flung out of the other side so fast that I hit the floor and went sliding across a great expanse of marble completely out of control. And would have kept on going, but something stopped me.

Something huge and warm and strangely shaped and glistening.

Something that looked a lot like a giant foot encased in a golden sandal, once my eyes stopped crossing long enough for me to focus on the massive thing, and the equally huge body towering over me.

“So glad you could join us,” a great voice boomed, echoing around what might have been the lobby at Dante’s, but I couldn’t tell.

But not because it had been remodeled, although it had, looking like Caesar’s with an upgrade, with gorgeous statuary, lush potted plants, and a brilliant mosaic in a dome overhead made of millions of pieces of glass showing Zeus triumphant. And not because I was too busy screaming for everyone to go back, go back, go BACK, although I was. But because my voice and my air were cut off the next second by that giant sandal starting to grind me into the ground.