“I’ve got two books in this car that could give me enough elemental control to—”
“They’ve got a fully equipped fire engine. Let them do their job. If you overdo it, you’re likely to make things worse.”
I tightened my fingers on the wheel and kept driving.
“What’s in that vial Lawrence made for you?”
I started to answer, then hit the brakes as a wendigo staggered out of McDonald’s. Its stomach bulged like an overstuffed sack. Before I could grab my shock-gun, a blue Harley-Davidson sped at the wendigo from the opposite direction. The driver appeared human, but the woman in the sidecar was in the hybrid form some weres could take, all muscle and fur and teeth, but still humanoid. She jumped out of the sidecar and tackled the wendigo while the driver pulled onto the sidewalk and grabbed an aluminum bat.
“Don’t kill it,” I shouted.
“Easy for you to say.”
It was anything but easy. The wendigo had fed recently. I suppose it could have stuffed itself on Big Macs and fries, but I doubted it.
“The vial?” Lena asked again as I turned into the drive-through to get past the fight. Wendigos were slower when sated, and the werewolves appeared to have things under control.
“The Porter database catalogs it as Love Potion 163-F. It’s fast-acting, works on contact, and lasts for up to ten years.”
She pushed herself up in her seat. When she spoke, she didn’t bother to disguise her anger. “One dryad isn’t enough for you?”
“You know I don’t want Deifilia for myself. I want to stop her. If we fight her head-on, she’ll crush us. But if I can create more of a conflict inside her, split her loyalty long enough for Bi Wei and the others to act, we might have a chance. We might even be able to save her.”
“Save her?” Lena repeated softly. “With the magical equivalent of a date rape drug?”
“I wouldn’t—”
“I know. That doesn’t make it right.”
I couldn’t argue. I had racked my brain for another way to stop Deifilia and resolve this mess. But even if I could have risked using my own magic, it never would have worked. Lena and I would have to fight through wendigos and metal beasts while the students of Bi Sheng countered my every spell.
“163-F has an antidote. If we can capture her alive, we can reverse its effects. I’m open to other suggestions, but people are dying, Lena.”
“I know,” she said again.
“The trick is getting it to her. She’s going to make sure we leave any potential weapons behind. No books, no swords, and nothing magical. But she’s new to our world, and there are things she might not recognize as weapons. One of those old prank calculators that’s actually a squirt gun, or maybe—”
“You think your love will be enough to overpower the Ghost Army’s wishes?”
“I only have to distract her, to create enough of a conflict for us to act.”
She took the test tube from my hand and carefully locked it away in the glove box. “I’ll do it.”
“You’ll do what?”
“The same thing I did to you in the library,” she whispered.
“How is that better than my so-called magic date rape drug?”
“It’s not.” She straightened. “But Deifilia is family. A sister. She’s my responsibility. If anyone does this to her, it will be me. Not a human.”
“And what if she turns that power back on you?”
Lena managed a smile. “One way or another, you’ll have your distraction.”
I hadn’t liked my original plan. I liked this one even less. It was one thing for me to try to enchant Deifilia, and to risk whatever backlash might come if my plan failed. It was my research that had started all of this, after all. But if Lena failed, she would take the brunt of Deifilia’s punishment.
I turned onto my street, and a metal eagle swooped down to land on the top of the windshield, talons grating against the crystal. I slammed the brakes, stalling out the engine. Smudge lit up like a flare.
“That’s why you didn’t get to stay supersized,” I said as I waited for my heart to recover. “You’d have set the whole car on fire.” I nodded to the eagle. “We’re alone.”
The eagle spread rust-edged wings and gave an ear-stabbing shriek. Tiny, layered scales of sheet metal served as feathers. The edges were irregularly cut.
“I have the books.” I restarted the engine and edged the car forward. The eagle didn’t appear to object, though it watched me closely with eyes made of iron pellets. I was more fixated on the damage Deifilia had done.
I lived on the edge of Copper River, in a moderately wooded area. Deifilia had turned the trees against my neighbors. Using oak and maple as giant clubs, she had smashed rooftops and fences, flattened cars, and ripped through power lines. My house was the only one undisturbed. Deifilia had put the trees behind my house to another use.
I couldn’t decide whether to call it a grove or a fortress. Oak trees had sprung up in a rough circle throughout the backyard. Branches wove together to create a fence of living wood. The trees were a good forty feet higher than any others, and the smallest was three feet in diameter.
Wendigos watched us from the upper branches. Metal glinted among the bark and leaves. I saw no sign of Deifilia or her human followers. Presumably they were inside the grove.
“That’s impressive,” I said. “Terrifying, but impressive. Of course, now all the neighbors are going to want one.”
We stopped in the driveway and climbed slowly from the car. The moment Lena’s foot touched the grass, she froze. “It’s all one tree. Isaac, this is my oak, and Deifilia is inside of it.”
On another day, I would have come up with something better to say than, “Wow.” Not only had Deifilia created a grove of cloned oak trees, she had done it in less than an hour.
“Be careful,” said Lena. “Anywhere the roots or branches touch, she can strike. The roots will encircle and break your legs, or drag you into the ground until you suffocate. Or maybe they’ll just sprout spikes and impale you.”
“Making Deifilia into Sleeping Beauty and the enchanted hedge all in one. Perfect.”
A slender figure stepped out from between the trees, the branches bending aside to let her pass. Bi Wei gave no outward sign that she knew me, though we both knew Deifilia was aware of our earlier contact. “Leave the car and any weapons. Including your books.”
I stripped off my jacket, tucked my pistol into an inner pocket, and set it inside the car. Lena did the same with her bokken, but she kept the graft from her tree. She rested one end on the ground and leaned on it like a crutch. At this point, the branch was probably the only thing keeping her upright.
Bi Wei studied us both. A pair of metal grasshoppers nested in her hair. They could have been decorative, save for the way they rubbed their forelegs together as they watched us. Harrison’s millipede circled her throat. “You carry spells,” she said, stepping closer. Her fingers touched my temple. “Here. And another, deeper within.”
I tapped my head. “I have a fish in my brain.
For an instant, I saw amusement in her eyes, and something more: a libriomancer’s delight at discovering a new trick. But the emotions didn’t reach her voice. “What of the other spell?”
I had left the potion in the glove box, and I wasn’t carrying any other magic. Everything was locked in the car, my books, my jacket, even— “Smudge. I created him, and it’s my magic that helps to sustain him. He’s staying with the car.”
Bi Wei tilted her head, listening to sounds I couldn’t hear. “You’ve brought our books?”
If I said yes, they could kill us and rip the car apart to find them. They’d be pissed to discover the books weren’t there, but that would be little comfort, what with me being dead and all. “First I need to talk to Deifilia. She needs to leave Lena and Copper River in peace.”
She bowed slightly, then beckoned for us to follow.
“I like her,” Lena said. “She’s cute for her age.”
