Vasiliy’s white eyebrows rose. “Or?”
“Or this meeting is over. We will consider your actions to be a declaration of war.”
The two volhvs looked at each other.
“We will abide by the agreements of peaceful assembly,” Curran said. “You’re free to leave. Go home, kiss your wives, hug your children, and put your affairs in order, because tomorrow I will burn your neighborhood to the ground. We will kill you, your families, your neighbors, your pets, and anyone who will stand in our path. An attack on my family will not go unpunished.”
That was the best smackdown I’d ever seen.
“No,” Vasiliy said. “No war.”
The raven on Grigorii’s shoulder cawed. The black volhv grimaced. “Roman.”
Roman bent down.
Roman took off at a run.
I leaned to Curran. “They’re bringing him.”
“Good tea,” Evdokia said.
A long minute passed and Roman entered, leading a man by his shoulder. The man wore wrinkled khakis and a sweater over a dress shirt that had seen its better days—grime stained the bend of the collar where it touched the neck. Some effort had been made to comb his light brown hair out of his bloodshot eyes, but it stuck out on the back of his head in untidy clumps. He gazed about him, looking lost, as if he weren’t sure where he was or why.
Adam Kamen. The source of the entire mess.
Roman pulled a chair out and pushed Kamen into it. As Roman straightened, his gaze snagged on something to my right. His eyes widened. He caught himself and stepped back, behind Grigorii’s chair. I glanced to my right and saw Andrea flipping through her notes. Oh boy.
Jezebel pushed off her seat. “Can I kill him? Can I kill him now, please?”
I shook my head. She dropped back into the booth, exhaling. It took all of my will not to pummel Kamen’s face into a bloody pulp. I barely had enough restraint for myself, let alone for her.
Curran pointed at the window. “Look.”
Down in Palmetto, a truck was backing up. Another slid into its place. The paramedics paused while it maneuvered toward them and resumed loading the bodies.
“I saw,” Adam said. “I was watching through the car window. Many people are dead.”
“Because of you,” I said. “You built it. Why?”
“For my wife,” he said. “I just wanted the hospital machines to work, that’s all.”
“The first one was for your wife,” Evdokia said. “Why did you build the second one?”
Adam shrugged. “Because that’s what I do. If you make a small one, you have to make one bigger. Just to see. Can’t build anything anymore.” He raised his hands. The bases of both thumbs were red and swollen. Kamen curled his hands into fists. His thumbs didn’t move. They’d severed the ulnar collateral ligament.
“You maimed him?” I asked Vasiliy.
The white volhv sighed. “We warned him. He didn’t listen.
Foolish man. That’s putting it lightly.
“The head is bright,” Vasiliy continued, “but no wisdom. His father was very respected in the community. Did a lot of good for a lot of people.”
“It was that or kill him,” Grigorii said. “Can’t trust him. He’ll build something else and kill us all.”
“Can’t build anything now,” Adam said. “Can’t hold a screwdriver. Can’t hold a wrench. Or a brush. Finished.
I surged to my feet, grabbed him by the hair, and twisted his head to the window. “Their lives are over. My kid is dying because of you, you damn asshole, and you are whining about your hands? Look at me. Look me in the eye. I want to skin you alive, do you understand?”
“I never meant for this,” he said, his arms limp. “I meant it for good.”
“There were armed men guarding you. Why the hell do you think that was? You tested it. You saw things die in the forest. Why didn’t you destroy it?”
“I couldn’t do that. That’s what my purpose is, to build things. It was special. I gave it life. It was important.”
“More important than dead children?”
Adam’s mouth went slack. I glimpsed the answer in his eyes. Yes, his gadget was more important than dead children. Nothing I could say would reach him.
I shoved him back into his chair.
“I told you,” Vasiliy said. “Not right in the head. Defective.”
“There is a sect of anti-magic fanatics,” Curran said. “The Lighthouse Keepers. They have the blueprints for the device. They’ve built their own version.”
Grigorii paled.
“How big?” Vasiliy asked.
“Five-mile range.”
Grigorii swore. Vasiliy leaned back, dragging his hand over his mouth. “Five miles?”
Curran nodded and looked at Adam. Kamen cringed.
“How long does it take to activate?”
Kamen blinked. “The smaller model took forty-two minutes. For the larger, I never tested . . .”
“Three hours, twelve minutes,” Jim said.
“There is a coefficient . . . Ten hours, fifty-nine minutes, and four seconds,” Kamen said.
“That’s our time frame,” Jim said. “Ten hours and fifty-nine minutes from the start of the magic wave. Magic hits, we start the countdown.”
“Can it be turned off once activation starts?” Curran asked.
“Yes,” Adam said. “There is a switch to power it down. I will show your people.”
“What about the machine that has been used?” I asked. “What happens if you open it?”
“Do you have it?” Kamen’s eyes sparked.
Grigorii leaned over and slapped him on the back of the head. Kamen rocked forward and glanced at Grigorii like a kicked dog. “No need to hurt. I know, I know. Do you have a beer?”
Barabas stepped away for a moment and set a beer in front of Kamen.
“There is a valve at the top.” Kamen shook the beer. “The device is of limited capacity. There had to be a way to empty it so it could be refilled.”
He’d built the equivalent of an atomic bomb, and he’d made it reusable. Words failed me.
“So they can go from town to town murdering us,” Evdokia murmured.
Kamen set the beer down. “You push the switches and poof.” He grasped the beer again, tried to twist the cap, and stared helplessly at it. No working thumbs. Barabas leaned over him and twisted the cap off with a snap of his fingers. Liquid shot out. Foam spilled over the sides of the bottle.
“Have to be careful to push the switches correctly or it goes sideways,” Kamen said. “Boom and the cylinder breaks. Everyone’s dead.”
Great. I made a heroic effort to ignore Curran’s stare. “If you open it correctly, does most of the magic shoot straight up?”
Kamen nodded. “Yes. Some goes down, but most straight up. Like a laser.”
“The magic that washes down, is it potent?”
“Very.”
“Like a small flare?”
“Yes.” Kamen nodded several times. “Just like that.”
I looked at Evdokia. “Can this magic be harnessed by a coven and focused on one person?”
“Possibly,” Evdokia said.
Grigorii snorted. “That much magic, your witches would break. And your focus would overload. You’d need an anchor for it, an object, to take the brunt of it, then draw power from it.”
The duck-bunny-kitten stopped its rolling and hissed at Grigorii.
