Magic Rises

into position behind me. I turned. Barabas grinned at me.
    “Where is Christopher?” I asked.
    He pointed at the side table. Christopher sat next to Keira, his eyes clear as a summer sky without a single thought clouding the blue. He saw me and rose. His lips moved. Mistress.
    The belt around Christopher’s waist looked familiar, especially the pouches hanging from it. I was pretty sure they were filled with my herbs. “Is he wearing my spare belt?”
    “Yes,” Barabas said. “He somehow got his hands on it when we loaded supplies onto the ship. I tried taking it off him, but it really upset him and I didn’t want to injure him.”
    “That’s fine. Let him have it.”
    I smiled at Christopher.
    He sighed happily and sat down.
    Desandra strode into the hall, escorted by Aunt B and George. Doolittle followed her in an ancient wheelchair.
    Desandra landed in the chair on my left. “You survived.”
    “I did.”
    “Nobody told me.” She sighed. “Nobody ever tells me anything.”
    I shrugged, feeling Slayer’s comforting weight on my back. The tension in the air was so thick, it made me itch.
    The fey torches in the great hall flickered. The conversation died.
    Through the wide-open doors of the front entrance, I could see the main hallway. Along the wall feylanterns blinked in their sconces. The steady glow flickered. A moment and I felt it too, a swell of magic approaching fast. Someone was coming. Next to me, Curran tensed.
    A foul magic washed over me as if someone had thrust my mind into a rotting liquefied carcass. Vampires. A lot of them.
    People turned to look at the hallway. Some rose and leaned over their tables to get a better view.
    Horns blared in a chorus, an ancient alarming sound taut with a warning. The banners on the walls stirred.
    People marched down the hallway, coming toward us. They wore black and gray and they moved in unison, two by two. I focused on the leading pair. Hibla walked on the left. Her hair was pulled back from her face and she stared straight at me with a cold predatory glare. Gone was the woman who’d asked me for help and pleaded silently from behind the cage bars. This was a killer, disciplined, icy, and lethal. A familiar insignia marked her chest: a small five-rayed star with a half circle above it and a tall triangle on the right: the ancient hieroglyph of Sirius, the Dog Star. Voron’s voice came from my childhood memories: If you ever see this, run .
    “We’ve been had,” I said. “These are the Iron Dogs.”
    “What are they?” Aunt B asked.
    “Roland’s elite unit,” Curran said.
    “How bad?” Mahon asked.
    “Bad,” Curran said.
    Bad was an understatement. Each Dog was a highly trained ruthless killer. They used weapons, they used magic, and a lot of them weren’t human and hid more surprises than a Swiss Army knife. A single Iron Dog could slaughter a dozen normal soldiers. They served as my father’s commando force. Hugh d’Ambray was the preceptor of their order.
    I stared at Hibla’s face. I’d felt bad for her. I’d tried to help her. I’d bought her clueless local bumpkin act hook, line, and sinker. How could I have been so stupid? No matter. Next time I’d know better.
    The first pair of Iron Dogs stepped into the great hall and split, standing on each side of the door, locked into an at-ease pose.
    Two men and two women followed, wearing impeccable business suits. As the first woman stepped through the door, her high heels clicking quietly on the stone, an emaciated arm hooked the top edge of the doorway. A vampire crawled into the great hall over the top edge of the doorway, muscles flexing like steel cables rubbing against each other under its pallid hide. Another undead followed. They scuttled up the wall like some grotesque predatory geckos, driven by the navigators’ will.
    Hugh had brought his Masters of the Dead. This was just getting better and better.
    The Masters of the Dead took positions behind the twin lines of the Iron Dogs. The hallway stood empty for a long breath.
    You could hear a pin drop. The shapeshifters froze, silent and wary.
    Hugh turned the corner. He wore leather armor. Supple, but reinforced with metal plates, it molded to him as if it had been melted, poured over his body, and allowed to harden. Loose but thick leather pants shielded his legs. Wrist guards of hardened leather and metal plates protected his wrists. A strip of leather, likely hiding a thin flexible length of metal, guarded his neck.