Chapter 12

W e make our way east and north to the RFK bridge—a small advance force comprised of Andreas, myself, my mates, our pack, Nico, Philemon, Emily, twenty-five of Andreas's handpicked warriors—roughly half fae, the other half evenly divided between vampires and shifters—and another twenty-five volunteers from my caravan, again being mostly fae and the rest evenly split. Not quite seventy-five of us. The messenger who brought word of the attack couldn't tell us how many mortals were attacking.

We need a reliable communication system—we can't rely on technology—even radios are unreliable because they need energy, which is currently in short supply and unreliable. I make a note to add that to Aeldfar's list of tasks.

We have four pickups packed to the brim—five in each cab and another eight to ten piled in the beds. The rest, the shifters, follow in animal form, a chaotic swarm of lions, tigers, bears, coyotes, wolves, lynx, bobcats, and jaguars…they growl and whuff and roar and snarl, easily keeping pace with our slow- moving trucks. The roads are clogged with abandoned cars and wrecked hulks, making progress slow.

I glance at Andreas, driving. "Need to get these roads cleared."

He nods. "Been on the list, but the fucking Federation keeps attacking, and it's been all I can do to keep repelling the attacks and holding our territory."

"I'm not criticizing, Andreas. I haven't been here—I don't know what you can and can't do, what you have and haven't done. I'm just pointing out what I see."

Andreas wipes his face with one hand. "Yeah, I know—sorry. I'm just…stretched thin and stressed out. Getting vampires, fae, and shifters to work together as an army? Fuck, it's damn near impossible. What authority I have has been hard-won." He glances at me. "To be perfectly honest, I'm relieved beyond expression that you're here so I can leave the political leadership to you. I'm an old soldier, Maeve. That's what I know. That's what I do."

I squeeze his shoulder. "You've done an amazing job here, Andreas. Truly. And I'm here now. We're all here. It's not all on you anymore."

He inhales slowly, holds it, and lets it out…not shakily, exactly, but definitely with some emotion. "It hasn't been easy, I'll tell you that much."

We approach an intersection—the north-south avenue is blocked on the north side of the intersection. We have to keep going east anyway, but the barricade causes Andreas to halt, staring hard at the ten-foot-high amalgamation of overturned trucks, cars, semi-trailers, food carts, garbage trucks, and barbed wire. "That's new. I don't like that."

I look at him—his eyes are whited out, signifying that he's using maya. "What is it?"

He shakes his head, his eyes returning to normal. "I don't know. A feeling. Intuition. Something is wrong." He glances in the rearview mirror. "Emily—are you up for a quick flight?"

She's in the back seat, between Caleb and Caspian. "Yes! What do you need?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. Something just isn't right. They're attacking at the RFK, numbers unknown, but there's a new barricade here. Head west along the Hudson and make sure the attack on the RFK isn't a feint."

"Who's fainting?" Emily asks, puzzled.

Andreas snorts a laugh. "Not faint, f- a -i-n-t, like passing out—feint, f- e -i-n-t, as in a fake out."

She blushes. "Oh. Sorry. My father didn't think education was necessary."

Andreas just smiles at her. "No worries. We can address that later. For now, the fact that you can fly, count, and assess is far more valuable than your vocabulary."

Caspian opens his door and lets her out—she climbs right over him with excited exuberance, peeling out of her clothing—loose, baggy sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie, no underwear, no bra, and Crocs on her feet. She tosses the clothing into the cab without a hint of self-consciousness.

"Hudson River, west. Got it. Be back ASAP." She says the acronym as a word rather than spelling it— AY-sap .

She takes half a dozen hard, sprinting steps, and then, much like a long jumper in track and field, a pair of long, extended-stride bounds, and then a wild skyward two-foot leap. Amber light flares, and her hawk swoops low, beats her wings furiously, and rockets skyward. Within seconds, she's gone.

"Hell of a talented shifter," Caleb says. "Shifting on the fly like that, literally? Takes a lot of confidence and a lot of practice."

Andreas glances over his shoulder at Caleb. "Can you and your pack see what the deal is at the bridge? What are we facing? Don't engage—just assess and report back to Maeve."

Caleb nods. "Certainly." He leans forward between the seats and kisses my jaw. "See you."

And then he's out of the truck, stripping, tossing his clothes in with Emily's. The pack, in the truck bed, do the same, having heard the order through the open window panel in the back of the cab.

Moments later, six wolves stream east, howling and yipping. Sierra, after a night's rest, a lot of food, and renewal of her mana reserves, is almost back to normal. I wouldn't classify us as friends yet, but she seems to have let go of her hatred of me, which is a huge step forward.

I hear gunfire to the east—sporadic bursts punctuated by an occasional explosion. We wait for several tense minutes before Caleb's voice fills my mind.

They're hitting the bridge pretty hard. The ward is holding for now, but a few more direct hits from this damned tank, and it'll blow out. One tank, no APCs. A few HUMVEEs and roughly a hundred men, probably fewer.

I relay the report to Andreas, who curses floridly and extensively. "It's a feint—I'd put money on it. They're gambling that we'll take the bait—the tank is the real hook. But less than a hundred? We can repel that easily and he has to know it." He smacks the steering wheel with the heel of his palm. "Ask him how the defenders are faring. Can they hold out?"

I relay the question.

They have two fae who are doing their best to keep the ward up, but that tank is pummeling it—and the small arms fire isn't helping. Once the ward goes down, they're going to be in trouble. Ten fae, one shifter, and three vampires. I'd say they have minutes at most .

"We have to help them," I say. "I need to help them hold the ward."

He shakes his head. "Not yet. We need to know where the real attack is happening first."

I hear Emily's piercing screech high overhead—I look up in time to see her tuck her wings back and stoop toward us. She bellies her wings at the last second, abruptly arresting her incredible speed before gliding forward a few feet above the ground—she shifts back and lands lithely on her feet, trotting off the last of her momentum.

"The Lincoln tunnel," she says, panting. "Big time. Three tanks, two of the…whaddya call'em, armored personnel things, and at least, like, five hundred soldiers. That's just an estimate. There's a ward on this side of the tunnel but no defenders."

"I fucking knew it. With three tanks, that ward will fall in minutes." Andreas goes perfectly still, thinking. It seems like an eternity, waiting for his decision, but in reality, it's less than ten seconds. "We play along. Act like we've taken the bait. Maeve—you and Caspian take twenty or so to the bridge. Be visible, be showy. Give them something to talk about. Defend the bridge at all costs—that's not fake. Meantime, I'll take the rest to the tunnel, let them break the ward, and push through. We've already blocked off north-south access around the tunnel with warded barricades that even their tanks will have a hard time breaking through." he looks at me. "This is where you push your powers to the limit, Maeve. You have to wrap shit up at the bridge and get over to reinforce us. We're gonna hit them from behind and keep them busy while you handle the bridge and join us and hit from the front."

I blow out a breath. "Risky." I look at him. "You're putting a lot of faith in me."

"I am—because I believe in you. Now go. Just…keep the bridge intact if at all possible."

I shove out of the car, followed by Caspian. Andreas calls out for twenty volunteers to go with me—within seconds, two trucks are continuing east with the volunteer force while the rest re-route south and west.

I summon prana and leap skyward, lightening my body and launching myself with a blast of wind. I feel Caspian below and behind me a few feet, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, soaring nearly weightless for long seconds. Below, the trucks make slower progress, having to weave through the messy maze of streets.

With the river and the bridge in view, now, I hear the chatter of gunfire and the slow, regular BOOM!……BOOM!……BOOM! of the tank's cannon.

Blue-gray steel towers sway and shudder as the ward absorbs the concussions—the ward flares white, crackling and sparking like a downed powerline, visible even to the mortals. The ward is on the island side and the tank is a hundred yards away, rocking backward with each blast, yellow flame belching from the long barrel. Three HUMVEEs are ranked in a line abreast beside the tank, two on the left and one on the right; the HUMVEE on the right has a machine gun mounted on the top, which fires in cacophonous three- and four-round bursts. Soldiers kneel beside the vehicles, rifles to their shoulders, firing steadily.

The defenders huddle behind the girders of the tower, helpless to do anything but hope the ward holds long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

Which is me.

I float myself along with another blast of wind and then soar in a downward diagonal toward the bridge. I feel my prana boiling, eager and wild, seething in my gut, begging for release.

I guide my descent with brief directional gusts, aiming to land between the ward and the attackers.

As I fall, I summon a shield in front of me. Wind howls past my ears as I hurtle toward the bridge; I let my prana flare so my eyes, hair, and tattoos glow bright, blinding white-gold, turning me into a beacon.

Go low, I tell Caspian. Stay with the defenders. Tell them to be ready to drop the ward and attack on my signal.

Got it. What's the signal?

You'll know.

I land on the bridge hard, shield in front of me. There's a moment of silence as the attackers stare at me, confused. I hear a squeaking of metal—the tank training its cannon on me. I pour prana into the shield until it's almost three feet thick.

"Stand down and retreat or be destroyed," I call out, amplifying my voice. "This is your only warning."

Their response is to open fire on me. All at once, my shield is subjected to a barrage of small arms fire, and then the tank booms and rocks backward; my shield absorbs the impact and sends me skidding backward a dozen feet.

My turn.

Holding the shield in one hand, I shoot a lance of prana at the tank—the mortals won't be able to see it, but they'll feel the effects shortly. I set the prana on fire—no heatless flame this time. The tank ignites—prana does not need combustible material to burn. Within seconds, screams echo inside the tank as the metal heats and turns orange and then red.

The foot soldiers recover from their shock quickly, shuffling away from the burning machine and pouring fire at me. The shield holds, but the effort is exhausting, draining my prana swiftly.

I can't sustain the shield like this for much longer—a shield is an active glamour, unlike a ward, which is passive. Active glamours require constant feeding and control to sustain, the tradeoff being a shield can withstand far more damage. A ward, being passive, only needs to be reinforced occasionally but cannot take the same kind of pounding a shield can.

I draw prana and launch a quick series of one-handed fireballs—they're slow-moving, about the speed of a thrown ball, and do little damage to objects but can wreck a human. It's a distraction. And it works.

The gunfire cuts off abruptly as the soldiers scramble out of the way. I stretch the shield across the width of the bridge.

" NOW !" I shout.

Running footsteps echo on the bridge behind me. I feel Caspian beside me.

"Form up behind me," I call out. "I'll push forward to close the distance, drop the shield, and then we attack. Two of you fae, work with the shifter, protect his flanks. Vampire—you get into the HUMVEEs and take out the drivers. Ready?"

I don't wait for an assent. I push the incredibly dense shield forward—when a shield is this thick, it's like pushing a car in neutral: the density of the shield creates a physical sense of weight, requiring me to tap into my supernatural strength.

I strain, snarling. Foot by foot, I push the shield across the open space of the bridge—gunfire resumes, and I feel each bullet impact like the sting of a bee. I'm losing the shield—they can only be held for so long, no matter how much prana you have; the physical toll of maintaining the shield is greater than the drain on prana.

We're within a few feet now, and the impacts of the bullets on the shield are more than mere bee stings, now—truly painful. Nothing I can't withstand, but immensely unpleasant.

Now comes the tricky part. I focus on propping up the shield for a few more seconds while dividing my attention—I'd like to be able to reproduce Andreas's trick with the shadows, but I haven't had a chance to parse that glamour. So, instead, I do the opposite. I summon a flood of prana and channel it into the shield—but instead of reinforcing the density of the jellified air, I create light. Blinding, searing, brutal, punishing white light, like staring into the heart of a nuclear detonation.

The gunfire ceases; I drop the shield.

No order is necessary—the moment the shield goes down, those behind me attack. Four fae surge past me, wielding shocksticks in pairs—these are former enforcers. One stick as a shield, edges overlapping, the other as a weapon set to kill, crackling with savage electricity. Before the mortals can open fire again, the fae are among them, smashing with shields and lashing out with shocksticks. Screams echo and overlap and electricity buzzes and crackles. Four more fae, similarly armed and in the same line abreast formation, enter the fray behind the first set, and now they work in well-trained synchronicity, the first line smashing through, making way for the second, who spread apart, creating a wedge opening in the mortal forces.

Gunfire rattles and cracks, but we're too close now. The second line pushes outward, huddling behind their shields and stabbing around with their shocksticks, widening the wedge in the mortal line.

I feel a rush of air and catch a blur of shadows—the vampire leaping over the scrum and to the ground beside a HUMVEE. He rips the driver's door off and hurls it aside like a frisbee, decapitating several mortal soldiers and disemboweling several more. And then he's in the vehicle and body parts fly.

Refocus.

I move into the opening with Caspian at my side. "Go help with the HUMVEEs," I tell him. "I'm fine here."

He's gone in a flash of shadows, and then more screaming abruptly cuts off as he decimates the occupants of the second vehicle.

The shifter, a huge Black male with long dreads, shifts into a tiger nearly twice the size of a normal OnceBlood tiger; he leaps past me, pouncing on a mortal who attempts to get his gun up in time. No such luck—he's erased in a gory splash of red. The two fae tasked to guard his flanks follow the tiger into the melee, shocksticks crackling and stabbing.

I'm last into the fight. I relax into instinct, let my body and my spirit take over—Mother's Spirit, now as much a part of me as my magic itself. I lash out with my power and yank rakta and prana to myself, watching mortal bodies desiccate and wilt as their life force flows into my palm. The more power I draw from the enemy, the more powerful I become; I can feel their heartbeats, their souls, I can locate them without looking, reaching for prana and rakta and jerking it out of them with vicious, merciless violence. I feel myself glowing white-hot and blazing with an overload of energy.

"DOWN!" I shout.

My forces obey instantly, dropping to their bellies without question or hesitation.

I let the power explode out of me, formless and uninhibited. It's a wave of pure, undiluted destruction. The tank is washed away, dissolved in a flash in golden-white light with the awful acrid scent of burning hair and the tang of spent magic.

Mortal bodies, now corpses, are blown away, turned to ash. The two closest HUMVEEs are blown over with a deafening squeal and crunch of metal.

Silence.

A dozen mortals, clustered together beyond the limited range of the blast, drop their weapons and sink to their knees. Caspian, the other vampire, and the shifter crouch in front of them, ready to attack.

"Wait," I say. I stride toward them. "Take their weapons and armor into the remaining vehicle and head for the tunnel. I'll deal with these remaining mortals."

I taste their terror in the air, a sharp, sour scent like old urine. I must be quite a sight for them: wrapped in blood armor that flows over my body, still liquid but somehow solid, glowing with an inner incandescence. My hair, skin, eyes, and bondmark tattoos all glow blinding white, and my hair flutters in a nonexistent wind.

"P-please," one of the soldiers whimpers. "Don't—don't kill us."

I remain silent as Caspian and the others strip them of body armor, weapons, ammunition, and other useful gear, pile it into the vehicle, clamber in themselves, and take off back across the bridge.

I regard the mortals with a long, silent stare. "Why do you fight?" I ask after a while.

The one who begged me not to kill them answers. "Bridgestone—he…he offered ten grand per head for a two-month stint. Another grand if you bring a friend with military experience."

"Money?" I stare at him. "Was it worth it?"

He shakes his head. "We…we didn't know what we were signing up for. He made it seem like we were a private security force, like Blackwater. We thought we were gonna be deployed overseas somewhere. And then we were shipped here to New York. We weren't briefed on anything. Just given unit assignments and told to follow our squad leaders, and I don't think the squad leaders even knew what the orders were till the last second." He shakes his head again, his voice quavering. "We didn't sign up to exterminate people, and that's what he has us doing. But the noncoms, they're loyal to him. They're the ones who share his beliefs, that you guys are…" he trails off.

"That we're what?"

"Subhuman." He whispers it. "Freaks. Savages."

"And what do you think?" I ask him.

"I didn't sign up to kill innocent people. But the noncoms will fuck you up if you refuse orders. I've seen people shot for refusing to carry out a raid."

I scan the rest of the faces. "I have no interest in executing prisoners. You face a choice now, mortals—return to your units and carry on the fight against me and my people, who have offered you no harm until you attacked us; flee this place and go home; or join us and fight for equality for all people, all humans, mortal and immortal."

"If we go with you…what will happen to us?" It's a young woman, her face tear-streaked and dirty.

"That will be up to you. There will be plenty of work for everyone. We need soldiers, of course, but I will not ask you to fight against your own kind. You are welcome to do so if you choose, but it will not be asked of you. The future of this place—Manhattan-That-Was—is changing. We are creating something new here. You can be a part of it. You will not be harmed or treated as anything other than an equal to everyone else, regardless of race or lifespan."

I summon the mark of fealty. Their eyes bug out with shock and awe. "This is a mark of fealty. Touch it, and swear fealty to me, and you will be marked as one of mine. Head west, and one of my people will find you and show you where to go." I float the mark toward them. "It will not hurt or cause any effect on your body. It merely identifies you as belonging to my army—with one added element: if you betray me, I will know it, and you will die instantly." I don't remember if that's true, but it serves its purpose.

"What if we don't take the mark?" Another one asks.

I shrug. "Nothing. But my people won't necessarily know you've sworn fealty to me, and I cannot guarantee your safety since you're dressed in the uniform of the Mortal Federation. Do as you wish. I have no authority over you and claim none. I have other matters to attend to. Take the mark, or do not."

I leave the mark hanging in the air in front of them, a grapefruit-sized globe of swirling white and gold light. Turning on my heel, I launch myself into the air without a backward look. I feel, one by one, the mortals take the mark.

On to the real battle.