Curse the Dawn (Cassandra Palmer 4)

The conversation had to pause at that point because we’d reached Tremaine and, just beyond him, his idea of a ride. He shot us an apologetic glance. “It seems that any food that doesn’t make it into tourists’ stomachs is made into high-quality pig feed,” he explained. “And Mr. Ellis here hauls leftovers from several casinos to a recycler. He’s kindly agreed to drop us at Dante’s on his way back for another load.”

“It’s on my way,” the old man repeated cheerfully. “Now settle yourselves any old where. The drums are empty; you won’t hurt anything.”

Empty, as it turns out, is a relative term. The buffet sludge leaking over the sides of a half dozen black plastic drums was joined by several weeks’ worth of dried flotsam rattling around the truck bed. It was also about one hundred degrees with no shade, causing Rafe to hunker down with the sheets pulled up over his head.

“Are you all right?” I asked him, worried. Rafe was a master, but only fourth level. The sun didn’t merely drain someone like him of power; it could hurt or even kill him in sufficient quantities.

“Well enough,” he told me, but he didn’t sound good. Thankfully, it was only about twenty-five miles into town.

“I don’t get it,” I told Pritkin, who shook his head before I could even frame a question.

“Not here.”

“I don’t think he’s listening,” I said, nodding at the driver. The radio was blaring Johnny Cash at ear-ringing decibels, and that was from where we were sitting. The sound in the cab had to be deafening.

Pritkin just looked at me, so I turned to the nice war mage. “I don’t understand what stopped that thing. Once there was a tear in the fabric between worlds, why didn’t it continue all the way to the end of the line? Like ripping a seam when the thread’s cut?”

Tremaine looked nervously at Pritkin, who muttered something but answered the question. “My best guess would be that the ley line sink at MAGIC had enough energy to seal the breach. In your analogy, it would be like encountering a knot in the thread.”

“But what if that hadn’t been enough? What would have happened?”

“The tear would have continued until reaching a vortex big enough to counter it.”

“And that would be where?” I asked, getting a very bad feeling.

“The line where the eruption occurred runs from MAGIC straight to Chaco Canyon, where there is a great vortex—a crossing of more than two dozen lines. It is one of the most powerful in this hemisphere.”

“Chaco Canyon?”

Pritkin grimaced. “New Mexico.”

I stared at him for a moment, sure I’d heard wrong. “New Mexico? You’re saying that thing could have continued for hundreds of miles?”

“Leveling every magical edifice across three states,” he agreed tightly.

“And a lot of nonmagical ones,” Tremaine added, looking horrified. “Even some norms can pick up on the kind of energy a powerful ley line throws off. Traditionally, a lot of human structures have been built around the lines, even when the builders didn’t know why.”

Pritkin nodded. “If someone has found a way to disrupt the lines, it could be disastrous. Both for us and for the human population.”

I thought about the seared plain, the death and the destruction we’d left behind. “I think it already has been,” I said quietly.

At least I didn’t have to worry about any war mages who might still be prowling around the casino. By the time we made it back, our closest friends wouldn’t have recognized us. Or wanted to get within ten feet of us.

I picked a desiccated wonton wrapper out of my hair, thanked the driver and skirted a long line of cabs to the front entrance. Despite the fact that we were covered in garbage and leaving a trail of dust that would have done Pig-Pen proud, no one gave us a second glance. The place was a madhouse.

Hundreds of tourists had crowded around the reception desk, yelling and waving papers at the usually suave Dante’s employees, who were looking a little stressed. Luggage was piled in heaps on the floor and on overflowing carts as harried bellhops ran back and forth, trying to keep up with the demand. Children were crying and threatening to fall in the Styx. An overtaxed air-conditioning system was straining to lower the temperature to maybe ninety degrees. And a bevy of new, life-challenged guests were clogging the lobby bar.

For a minute, I saw a double scene, the ruined bar from my vision transposed over the real thing. Then I shook my head and it cleared, leaving me looking at a muscle-bound type who had one of the fetish-clad waitresses by the waist. She was kicking and screaming and not with pleasure, but the senator didn’t seem to care. He’d been born in ancient Rome, where the manners relating to bar wenches had been a little different. Fortunately, the southern belle by his side wasn’t in a good mood. She cut her eyes up at him, frowned and nailed his hand to the table with a swizzle stick. He eyed her unfavorably as he pried it loose, but he did let go of the waitress.

“What is the Senate doing here?” I asked Rafe, only to discover that he’d disappeared. I glanced around but didn’t see him in the uproar. “Where did Rafe go?” I asked Pritkin.

“He left as soon as we arrived,” he told me, eyeing the dozen vamps, luggage in hand, who were waiting by an elevator.

None were Rafe. “Did he say where he was going?”

“No. But he probably went to check in. It appears that the Senate and its servants were instructed to rendezvous here.”

“It looks more like they’re moving in.”