High Steaks

by Daniel Potter

  Our anger flowed between us, our minds syncing towards a single purpose. Alice, we won't let them take you. We channeled, coating my claws and teeth with solid tass. O'Meara had never gotten the hang of moving through space, but my claws gained a purple tint of their own with a different purpose.

  We charged. Feather saw us coming, her form blurring. I swiped at her; my claws snagged not on her but on the rippling space she left behind, tearing it open. She tumbled out with a yelp of surprise. I pounced, slamming my body on top of hers, my teeth clamping down on the back of her neck. Her wards raged against me, shooting pain lancing up through the roots of my teeth as if my mouth had been packed with dental drills. I kept biting, despite the pain, and the ward began to yield. It switched tactics, attempted to expand, to throw me off, but I wrapped all four legs around the smaller cougar and held tight. Feather heaved up to her feet. Alice flickered and drove a horn directly into Feather's wounded side.

  Feather yowled and staggered. I felt her try to pull sideways to the space I had ripped her out of. Raking my purple claws across the air put a stop to that.

  O'Meara burned a casting around Feather and me. Burning tass, we reworked our trap and drove it deep into her wound. White energy slammed into the spell we had built. Feather screeched as we rolled away from her, the spell glowing like burning white phosphorous.

  Feather leapt up, desperately pawing at her side. "No! Kill me! Not that! Not —" The spell went off like a flashbang, white flooding her body, safely contained by her own wards. Feather stopped, then slowly toppled, an out-of-balance sculpture. Limbs rigid, empty eye sockets frozen in panic.

  O'Meara and I exhaled. The pain, the heaviness of my heart felt as if gravity itself was attempting to rip it from its cage.

  "You get used to it," O'Meara commented and stood. She felt the same pain, somewhat deeper than I, but shrugged it off. Why couldn't anyone else?

  "First time is always the worst. Most magi don't know how to deal with grief. They don't love many, and believe it or not, murder outside of wartime has been rare until recently." She answered my questions.

  I settled for a mental embrace. O'Meara smiled and turned her eyes to Alice, who lay on the ground, panting through a grinning muzzle. "You okay, Alice?"

  "Oh, hells yeah. I might still be a cow, but with Grace, I'm a ninja cow." You could hear the grin.

  I wrenched open my own eyes and found Grace stumbling down the channel, one hand carrying the exhausted spell ripper, the other using the wall for support. Every step spoke of exhaustion, but her dark eyes were twinkling in the dim light. "Is that... Feather?"

  "She's not dead," O'Meara said, cutting off the next several questions she predicted from the apprentice. "It's a spell; it will hold for a week at most. She's also the one who killed Trevor, Jet, and most of the disappeared Grantsville citizens."

  Grace's eyes lost their twinkle. I can't say I've ever seen a cow sneer before, but Alice was giving it a go. "She killed Trevor? Jet?" Murder danced in her eyes as Grace wrapped a long arm around her neck. Under the influence of Grace's anchor, Alice's form had become slender, gaining nearly a foot of height due to longer legs. If not for the curve of the horns and Holstein pattern of her hide, you would name her a deer instead of cow. A deer about to gore someone.

  I shot O'Meara a look, but she met my eyes head on. I told them because you weren't going to.

  I was! Just not at this moment! I mentally sputtered. We have bigger fish to fry, and his name starts with an 'L' and ends with a 'Y'.

  You were planning on cutting her slack because she's a cougar, O'Meara countered.

  And because she saved our bacon from her boss.

  That doesn't make her good.

  It's a start! All the good in the world won't erase what you did in that war, either, nor will it undo the deal I made with that dragon.

  Both are different. One is war and one is survival, O'Meara answered. Feather killed.

  Because otherwise Lansky would die from the hunger. They chose to survive. And Feather did so to preserve her bond. Does that make her that different from you or me?

  We both jolted with the thought. I hadn't meant to go there, but you can't unthink a thought any more than you can unsay a word. It rang with truth. Feather had become a monster to save her closest companion and friend despite the resentment. O'Meara drew me into her embrace and held me tight, kissing the top of my crown. She had been a monster once. I could become one at any moment. We would kill to keep the other safe, to ensure their survival. Sharing minds like this, there was nowhere to hide from that.

  "This is for Jet! And this is for Trevor!" We snapped out of our mental space to find Alice attempting to beat the ever-loving crap out of Feather. Fortunately, both her wards and the stasis spell were preventing any damage. O'Meara rushed Alice, threw her arms around her neck, and dragged her back from the frozen Feather.

  "Easy, Alice!" O'Meara strained against Alice, boots slipping on the concrete. "She can't hurt anyone now. Leave it for later. Right now, we have to stop her bond. That's who she was feeding."

  "She saved us from getting eaten," I said.

  Alice looked dubious but stopped fighting O'Meara, allowing us to fill them in on the situation.

  Grace's eyes widened with horror as the tale completed. "Ceres! She's still in that room, isn't she?"

  "Yes, but you're still functioning. That means she's okay for now, Grace," O'Meara told her.

  "You two need to take Feather to a safe place. We'll deal with her after we stop Lansky," I said.

  "How are you going to do that if he can use every single magus in town against you?" Grace asked.

  "We'll think of something," I mumbled. I still had about ten to twenty groat sitting in my second stomach. With that, Rudy could —

  My mind derailed. Rudy! Where was he now? Had he known Death well? Did he make it home?

  "We gotta go. You kids stay safe," O'Meara said, reaching out her hand toward me. I deposited several groat into her palm, which she pushed into Grace's dark hands. "Stay down here. If something happens, don't wallow. Get angry."

  Grace and Alice nodded.

  41

  A Facebook Moment

  As we raced through the flood tunnels toward home, a question started to nag at us. Once Feather had been overpowered by the hunger plane, why hadn't Lansky attempted to assist his converted familiar? O'Meara and I bandied about theories. Did he maintain a sense of betrayal? Did Lansky and Feather truly despise each other after all she had done to keep him sane?

  As we pulled ourselves out of the storm grate near the office, the lights of the hidden strip became visible, and so did our answer as to why Magus Lansky had not come to Feather's aid. The eternal flame of the council's tower now sputtered; multicolored light lanced out from gaping holes in the structure, and writhing things were crawling up the walls. Apparently, O'Meara wasn't the only magus in Vegas that could ward off the effects of Lansky's feeding.

  Or he needs all that to get through the defenses. Even if the Archmagi are down, the tower can defend itself. Come on. O'Meara prodded me toward the office, and we made haste.

  Nothing looked out of order as I dashed up to our front door and pressed my shoulder against the electronic lock.

  "Poor old stupid nutcase..." Rudy's voice reached my ears as I busted through the door to the office. Rudy had made it home! But barely, by the looks of it. He lay on the floor about three feet from the door, legs splayed out around him. His head lifted as I entered the doorway before dropping again.

  "Rudy!" I ran over to him and gave the rodent a nose poke.

  "They're gone!" he wailed. "They're all gone! Death and Ezial! They were supposed to be good! Death wanted to change everything! Then he got all old and bitter, sat on his throne and laughed at everyone!"

  "Come on, Rudy, snap out of it," I pleaded, but he just kept babbling.

  O'Meara locked the door behind her and blew out her cheeks as she studied the scene. Looks like he held it togethe
r until Lady Ezial was killed.

  "Is there any way to block it?"

  "Other than experiencing it again and again to build up a resistance? Or having your mind rebuilt by a dragon in such a way that outside influences barely work?" O'Meara asked.

  "Yeah, things that are possible to do within the next twenty minutes," I said, ignoring the sarcasm.

  "It's grief magnified, Thomas. That's not something you can snap your fingers and cure," O'Meara said.

  My brain itched. What if we didn't try to cure it? Just gave him something for the pain? You don't happen to know of a happy plane, do you? What did you do for a wounded soldier back in the war?

  Our bond constricted as O'Meara withdrew from me. "If I or someone with me couldn't heal them, they were sent home, Thomas. One way or another." The guilt on her face was so apparent that I turned away from her, gave her a moment to tuck away all those memories we had poked.

  Rudy still lay in front of me, whimpering. We had to do something. I cataloged all the things O'Meara knew: wards, battle magic, and perception were her specialties. And me? Bond Rudy? No, he'd never let me in. But I was really good at scrying. Feather had called Alice a juicy morsel; had that been because many people would grieve her? Were those connections somehow visible to this dark plane?

  The link reopened as I pondered. O'Meara pushed forward all she knew about mental magics, mostly how to defend against them. I held the info in the front of my mind for reference as I stared down into my friend.

  At first, Rudy showed no evidence of magic, no more than any other talking animal. A few odd eddies flowed through his body. At first, they were nothing more than mirage-like shimmers, but as I pressed my vision deeper, these eddies unrolled to reveal the mark of the singular Merlin on an enchantment that exuded a color I had never seen before. A color that burned to look at and hold in my head in the same way that fourth-dimensional geometries used to, but more intensely.

  Time, O'Meara supplied. That's what that color is.

  Merlin went backwards through time, didn't he? I asked, pulling myself back into the real world.

  No? I don't think that's true. O'Meara did not sound too sure on that. But it's rumored that Merlin's anchor dealt with time in some way. He was the only one who had permission to walk the timelines. If I had to guess, that enchantment is holding time back from Rudy's body.

  I shivered, imagining what might happen to Rudy if anything ever happened to that enchantment. Still, it had given me an idea to proceed. I lowered my lips to Rudy's ear. "Merlin! We need your help."

  "Why'd you have to die before I shoved a firecracker down your throat? It's not faaaaair..." Rudy whined into the floor.

  "That could be considered an improvement..." O'Meara did not manage to swallow her chuckle entirely.

  Not helping! I thought at her before rephrasing my plea. "Look, Merlin, I know you don't approve of the council. I don't, either. But Lansky's got most of the magi in the world on their knees right now. He can use all their anchors! Oh, and Rudy - if you don't cooperate, I'm going to post this moment on Facebook."

  That got a watery eye open.

  Grinning, I continued. "I bet in your current state I could pick you up by that lovely tail of yours and hold you up for the picture. Start a whole new album: ‘Rudy undone by cats.’"

  Rudy's back legs started to kick impotently across the floor as O'Meara produced an iPhone. She walked some distance away before positioning for the shot. Carefully, I bent down to grab that fluffy tail. The tips of the hairs were brushing my lips when Rudy shot away, screaming, "Nuuuuuu!"

  In a streak of gray fur, Rudy zipped up into Coraline, and we heard a rustle-crash as he impacted the leafy nest in the center. He returned, hauling out a bag of mixed nuts, chittering madly. He ripped the bag open and began hurling nuts at me as fast as he could lob them into the air. He wasn't terribly accurate from across the room, most landing well short of me. Smiling, I obligingly closed the distance until the nuts were pinging off my head like raindrops. Rudy's chattering slowed so I could almost understand the torrent of verbal abuse he was flinging down along with the nuts. Something very mature about how he was going to make peanut butter out of the nuts between my legs.

  "Sorry, Ru-" I coughed suddenly as a cashew flew down my throat. I spat it out and continued, my muzzle pointed at the floor. "Had to snap you out of it somehow."

  "Never! Ever! Touch! My! TAIL!" Rudy punctuated each word with a nut to my head. The final one hit me dead on the nose with enough force that my third eyelids came up. Fortunately, Coraline didn't produce acorns or any other pointed fruit, or I'd have some actual bruises.

  After several seconds without new impacts, I risked looking up. Rudy sat above me, clinging to the branch with all four feet, panting like a very small dog. "Are you... okay?" I asked.

  "Am I... okay?" Rudy repeated. "Heh." He gave a single snort of laughter, then a double, "Heh, heh."

  "Am I okay?" His voice turned viciously sarcastic before bursting into a peal of high-pitched laughter. "Death is dead! Lady Ezial is dead, and now my best friend is threatening to humiliate me if I don't let that old wack job of a ghost screw around with my head!" Rudy whacked the side of his skull with a fist a few times. "Yes, I'm talking about you! You old dried-up coot! If you were alive, I'd tie firecrackers to your beard while you slept!"

  I made a mental note to make an antisquirrel ward around my beanbag bed for the next month or so if I ever had a chance to sleep there again.

  Rudy giggled, wobbling on the branch. "Crotchety fool! You weren't supposed to die, either! Everybody dies but me! You have no idea what you did to me! You think the five centuries you got was hard? Try when your folks live about two years." He let out a peal of laughter. "Oh, it's hilarious when I go back to the warren and everybody but the ex-familiars are dead! No, don't you dare go back to sleep! I have not begun to rant and remember! So much remembering to do! I can't remember the last time I had my whole life in front of me! Damn, that's a lot of life! Hey! Stop!" Rudy slumped on the branch. "Nutcrackers, he went to sleep again!"

  Before I could say anything, Rudy popped back up, his tail erect and quivering. "So, Death's dead, right? Hunt's over, normal life resumes." He looked from me to O'Meara and rubbed his paws together. In the silence, the sound of distant explosions could be heard. Rudy failed to suppress a titter. "So it's all gone wrinkly and complicated like the surface of a pecan, then?"

  Together, O'Meara and I filled him in on how the hunt had ended before it started. Rudy listened distractedly, wandering the floor and nibbling at the nuts scattered around my feet.

  "Right. So, vampire's gonna eat the council. This is bad, but not our problem, right?" Rudy said hopefully. His eyes seemed slightly too large for his head.

  "The Blackwings are still in the casino, Rudy. Probably every magus in the city is down," I said.

  "I've got one idea." O'Meara grabbed at Rudy's iPhone, jabbed it with her finger a few times, and placed it between Rudy and me. The phone displayed a series of photos in an album labeled "Death's Vault.”

  Rudy looked at the folder, blinking his unfocused eyes. "You know my PIN number?!"

  "Rudy, you unlock that phone on Thomas's back all the time, and guess who's looming over him half the time?" O'Meara jerked her thumb back to point at herself.

  The squirrel's tail sagged as he studied the phone for a brief moment before a smile crept up on his face. "Hey, Thomas. Do you remember the time we broke into Ixey's room and used the big directory?"

  "Uh, yeah," I answered, wondering if it had any relevance to Death's vault.

  "Fun times!" He smiled as his tail lashed at the memories. "Oooh! You should have been there when I snuck into Archibald's place and stole Scrags's flying cushion! Boy, was he mad! This was before he had the whole 'fangs dripping with poison' bit. He chased me right into a tree where I had a bunch of toy cannons. Honey roasted cashews, I wish I could go back and take a picture!"

  O'Meara knelt down and tapped the phone
. "Rudy! You have to focus!"

  Rudy's gaze drifted slowly towards the page. "But if we need tass, why don't we go to the Luxor? It's not guarded if Ceres is down."

  "Remember what you said about how Death's major defense was to summon himself to the vault?"

  "Oh! Yeah!" Rudy jumped on the phone and began to swipe. "He's got some sort of resurrection thing in there. No clue how it works, but it summons either Death or his soul to the vault!" He tapped the section about the vault's defense if breached. The device that recalled Death into the vault.

  I saw the thread O'Meara was driving at. "So this will either pull Death's soul, unplugging at least some of the grievers from Lansky's influence, or pull them both to us."

  "Precisely," O'Meara said. "His familiar is in stasis. I don't care how many anchors he can use against us, we'll be fighting him on a pile of tass he can't use. Thomas, cough up whatever tass we've got left and let's get to work."

  The council tower was burning with black fire and the moon had gone missing the next time I looked outside. Rudy had assembled another vaultbuster firework under the near-constant supervision of me and O'Meara. We had to pause several times for Rudy to tell a story about when he had blown something or other up. Cutting him off had caused him to sulk and not do anything for several minutes.

  In the end, he had O'Meara unscrew the drain catch pipe from under the sink, packed it with tass and gunpowder, then capped the ends. We made a small fire focus to act as a detonator and used silver string to direct the blast out the caps of the pipe. Theoretically, O'Meara could point and fire the bomb while holding it in her hand.

  Theoretically, there is no way these bombs should work, O'Meara grumped to herself. Tass itself isn't energy. It's structural.

  E=MC squared, I thought back.