Authors: Edward Lazellari
CHAPTER 47
FOOD FOR WORMS
It took Lelani two elevators and ten minutes to reach the observation deck on the eighty-sixth floor. The sun was over New Jersey, turning the western horizon a faded turquoise even as indigo blue painted the opposite horizon over Long Island. The sirens echoed upward along the surrounding buildings in a frenetic monotone chorus. She sensed the power in the building, even that high above the city. A strong lay line flowed through New York—robust as any in Aandor, concentrated and swift like a stream after first melt.
They had stopped sending tours up when the golems first attacked, but a few stragglers hoping to avoid the chaos below still loitered about. This would not do.
“Everyone, please head for the exits,” she said as authoritatively as she could. “It is not safe here.” It certainly would not be in a few moments.
An officious looking African-American man approached her. “Excuse me, I work here, and I don’t know who you are.”
Lelani searched her pocket for the enchanted silver flower Cal had returned to her at the hotel. She pinned it to her lapel. “I’m from Homeland Security,” she said. “It is vital that you clear this deck immediately, including yourself.” The man herded the visitors toward the emergency stairs, where a few floors below they could access the elevator to the ground level.
Alone at last, Lelani started to secure her station. She pulled dream catchers from her satchel made of Rosencrantz’s wood and woven from strands of her own tail, and hung them in all four corners on the iron suicide gate that surrounded the deck. She placed two more, one in the center of the east face and one on the north, to reinforce the shield on the side facing Dorn. Ideally, one used unicorn hair to weave the strongest catchers, but there were no such creatures in this reality. It was Rosencrantz who suggested she use her own hair; Lelani had never considered herself a magical creature before. She also placed a tiny catcher hanging from a leather cord around her neck.
Next she placed soft clay eggplant-shaped objects on the stone ledge around the deck. They were for magical ailments, diseases, and gas attacks. Lelani didn’t know what Dorn’s spell book contained, but she was determined to prepare for every contingency. The small holes at the eggplants’ bottoms made them look like miniature beehives. Once done with the wards, she planted herself at the northeast corner of the deck gazing out at the Chrysler Building across the skyline. The western sun gleamed on that building’s silver crown and windows; she was more beautiful than the Empire State Building.
When Lelani first arrived in New York, in awe of the city’s majesty, she saw the two spires as a princess and her knight protector—one lean, a graceful dancer topped with a silver coronet and reaching toward the heavens with a slender arm—the other, the stalwart gray sentinel, armored, spear-bearing, guardian of the realm it surveyed. Little did she realize how right she was—the Empire State Building was indeed Lelani’s staging area for the city’s defense. Across town, the dancer’s beauty belied the dangers within her. Captain MacDonnell would soon engage Dorn regardless of whether Prelate Grey had managed to stop the flow of mana along that branch of the lay line.
Lelani needed to distract Dorn, get him to concentrate on her; maybe even send Symian over to deal with her. That way MacDonnell could engage Hesz and Kraten freely.
Damn it!
she thought.
She
should be there with them. Dorn was Lelani’s responsibility. Outclassed or not, she could never have sent Seth against that madman in her stead. She could still make a difference, if only Seth hadn’t abandoned them.
Lelani felt betrayed. She’d believed in him … that he wanted to make up for his mistakes. She defended him against MacDonnell’s distrust. Was he was dead? One of Dorn’s minions could have ambushed Seth, and he lay bloody in the gutter somewhere, another casualty of this horrid war.
She used the cell phone MacDonnell had provided to call Seth. Four rings and it went into voice mail, again. She tucked the device into her belt and focused her disappointment on drawing power through the building. She pulled at it like someone drinking a thick shake through a straw. It had to go somewhere though, she couldn’t just keep pulling in magic with no release; people were not equipped to be mana batteries and it would consume her. Lelani would use a new spell that Rosencrantz had taught her—a cousin spell to her phosphorous balls. She chanted the words for an orb of fire. She poured the tremendous amounts of energy she had access to and added more of herself into it, visualizing it, asking the energy to form a globe of intense heat, and whipping up the biggest, most powerful sphere of fire she’d ever created. Like a twin to the statue of Atlas holding the world just up the street at Rockefeller Plaza, she stood on the corner of the observation deck, one leg raised against the stone wall with arms wide holding her creation, a miniature sun under the transitioning twilight sky. It illuminated the building behind her and the tops of buildings below with its radiance.
Lelani prayed that Catherine was nowhere near the southwest corner of that building. Helicopters buzzing around the city suddenly turned toward her. She waited for a clear line—when she could put no more energy into the flaming globe, she uttered the release and shot it across the Manhattan skyline at the Chrysler Building. It exploded on the Chrysler crown like an errant firework, bringing back the daylight for an instant over Midtown. The flash subsided and the smoke cleared, there was not too much damage that she could see—just singed metal and several blown in windows.
“Knock, knock,” she said to herself. Despite the stupidity of picking a fight with Dorn, Lelani was quite please with herself. That was the biggest attack spell she’d ever cast.
This was it—all was set in motion. There’d be no hiding now. She was in a duel with one of the most powerful sorcerers of her world. If only Seth had turned out truer and willing, then she need not face him alone. She whipped out her phone for one last try. As the phone dialed, the magical net she’d woven around the deck lit up in a multicolored pattern mimicking the webs on the dream catchers, only on a scale that covered the entire deck.
You’ll not turn my mind today,
Lelani thought, fingering her necklace.
“Hello?” answered Seth on the other end.
He is alive!
Elation and irritation struggled for command of Lelani’s voice. If Seth could replace her on the observation deck, Lelani could go to MacDonnell. “EMPIRE STATE BUILDING, NOW!” she yelled, into the tiny device. Did that come out desperate or angry? She hoped she hadn’t scared him off.
A Fox News helicopter suddenly rose before her. It hovered between her position and the Chrysler Building. A cameraman tried to get footage of her.
Get out of here, you fools!
Lelani thought.
A spark, like glint off a mirror, lit the top of the Chrysler Building. Less than a second later, a sizzling bolt of white-hot lightning nicked the helicopter and seared the observation deck, blowing out several windows behind Lelani. She escaped Dorn’s retort by mere inches. The copter flew off erratically, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. Tendrils of excess lightning slithered up the dirigible docking mast and diffused into the antenna and then the open air. Her phone was less fortunate; pieces of melted slag smoked upon the ground. Dorn would need a moment to prepare the next charge. Hurled lightning was an incredibly taxing spell that even Lelani had yet to master—a much more intense and focused spell than fire. Knowing she had protected herself from mind control, poisons, curses, and such, Lelani expected more direct attacks from here on in.
She charged up her second fireball, lest Dorn think she escaped to find cover. Lelani hoped that if death had to come, it would be swift, and that her gods would somehow find her in this strange and far-off land.
CHAPTER 48
A DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE
Catherine sat tied and bound on the marble floor of the old Chrysler Building observatory. She was not herself. Drugged and still wearing the remnants of her torn blouse and skirt, Cat looked very much the victim Dorn had made her. It tore at her. What that man stole was not any man’s right to take. The very foundation of life itself was cut out of her and perverted—perverted to make the most horrible monsters she could ever imagine. There had to be a special place in hell for Dorn. Alone, afraid, and powerless—the few coherent thoughts Cat strung together did not dwell on her loved ones but on what she would do to Dorn if the opportunity presented itself.
It was cold in the observation deck because of the broken window Dorn had put Tom through. Cat was at least grateful Kraten hadn’t gagged her. She leaned against the wall for balance, shifting from cheek to cheek to relieve the ache in her glutes.
Kraten, Hesz, and Lhars guarded the entrances to the observatory as Dorn, sitting lotus style in the middle of the floor, poured his energies through the building into the sewers below Midtown, pushing the magic of the elixir to the ends of the island. The sorcerer looked pale—sweat beaded on his face and he ground his teeth as he worked. It wasn’t just the spell … the man was fighting his illness as well. Every act now was one of desperation. A random thought occurred to Catherine: If Dorn died, would the golems as well? Would his men surrender? She prayed for the chance to put that theory to the test.
Through the open window, Cat heard the distant wails of many sirens, gunfire, passing helicopters, and, even though she thought she imagined it because of the height, screams.
The authorities don’t know,
she realized. Didn’t know that the cause of all this mayhem was a madman sorcerer up here in the Chrysler Building. How could they? This world was not equipped to deal with stuff like this.
Pressing her back against the wall, she tried to worm her way to standing. Kraten observed this and stepped toward her.
“Not trying to escape,” she said. “Just want to see outside.”
He grabbed her by the cuff, pulled her the rest of the way up. He jerked her the few feet to the window. Forty-second Street was a sea of flashing red lights. Even from that high up, she could make out the golems among the people.
So many,
she thought. It was bedlam out there, made worse by this happening so close to rush hour. Even the skies were filled with police and news helicopters, buzzing about Midtown.
Midtown.
Not downtown. Dorn’s efforts had not reached the fringes of the island yet. If only there was something she could do to stop him now.
To the southwest, a bright hot light formed near the top of the Empire State Building. It grew unnaturally blazing like a miniature sun on the corner of that building.
“My lord,” said Kraten, also looking at the bright light. “Perhaps you should see this?”
Dorn was in an irritable state. Hesz helped him up and the sorcerer leaned on the giant as they approached the window. He looked far worse, now that Cat saw him up close—veins running close to the surface, lines around his eyes and mouth. Dorn looked as though he’d aged ten years since before casting the golem spell. Kraten pulled Catherine away from the window to make room for his master. She’d lost her balance, and tried to regain it, but felt herself teetering forward with each tiny hop. Symian caught her just before she hit the floor. Even through the fanged grin, grayish skin, and yellowish eyes, Catherine sensed warmth coming through his smile. He’d saved her when Dorn wanted to use her remaining ova for the second golem batch. Why? They were the bad guys …
Symian smiled at her tenderly—but this same man had tried to kill Cal and Lelani on multiple occasions. He left her by the middle window to check out the light show with the others at the southwest end. She squirmed her way up until she could see the Empire State Building again. The ball of light suddenly grew bigger in a much different way … before it was fixed in its location—now it blocked the view behind it, as though it were …
“Oh shit,” Cat whispered. She rolled on the floor as far away from the southwest window as she could get.
Hesz shoved Dorn and Kraten away from the corner, shielding them with his massive back as the ball of flame hit the building. It wrenched a gaping, smoking hole in that corner of the observatory, shattering the glass, and ripping apart the frame of the window it hit. The temperature rose from the hot glowing debris along the hole’s edge as tendrils of fire and smoke came into the room.
The crown’s metallic skin shielded them from the worst of the blast. It was not a very effective attack but had garnered Dorn’s attention.
“That bitch!” Dorn cried out. His temper had turned dark, and he forgot about powering the golem spell. The smoke soon dissipated, and as the observatory was mostly empty space, nothing actually caught fire. At the edge of the floor, using the new opening, Dorn raised his right palm toward the Empire State Building and his left palm down toward the floor. He uttered phrases alien to Catherine. Moments later, tendrils of light glimmered on the Empire State, like a pulsating fiber-optic spider’s web.
“She’s erected wards,” said Symian.
“I can see that,” Dorn said, transfixed on the other building across the city. “Go deal with her,” he ordered his apprentice matter-of-factly.
Symian, usually upbeat and positive, turned sullen in an instant. A quiver in his lower lip confirmed to Cat that Symian did not approve of this order. Kraten, Hesz, and Lhars observed quietly, each with dour expressions. Hesz’s posture betrayed a hint of anger.
“My lord, the streets are filled with vicious golems,” Symian said. “Surely you can…”
“I cannot send them on a new task until the prince is dead,” Dorn said. “Not even if I wished it. That is their core purpose for existing.”
“My—my lord,” Symian pleaded. “The centaur has bested me. Twice.”
Dorn turned to his apprentice with the most placid of expressions. “Is the centaur a match for me?” he asked.
“No, my lord.” Symian’s response smacked of politics.
“Yet she attacks me anyway!” Dorn pointed out. “Show me similar resolve, Symian. Or go be a mummer’s apprentice and pull weasels from your fool’s cap.” Dorn pondered his command for a moment and then added, “I care not for fair fights. Use your blade … stab the bitch with faerie silver and throw her from the roof. I’ve always wanted to see a centaur fly.”