“Na, smarting off takes no energy. It’s just like breathing.”
Harker looked at Nero. “I think I understand why you were complaining about her when she joined the Legion. Her mouth is considerably less charming when I’m in charge.”
“Perhaps instead of considering the qualities of her mouth, you should concentrate on the matter at hand,” Nero replied coolly.
I smirked at Harker. Haha.
“I’m letting you off easy,” he told me.
“You carry this generator, and then you can call it easy.”
“I could have punished you more severely. I will overlook your transgression this time because you contained the threat.”
“That threat is my friend.”
“And if we put an end to this plague, she might get to be your friend again.”
We entered the lab. Nerissa froze when she saw the enormous generator I was carrying.
“So a city-wide disaster is what it takes for me to finally get the new equipment I’ve asked for,” she commented.
I set down the generator at her feet. “You have a new patient, Doctor.”
Nerissa frowned. “And just when I’d finally put the last one to sleep.” She watched as Ivy smashed spells against the barrier, doing her best to blast it—and all of us—to smithereens. “So Angel Fever has spread to the Legion.”
“How is it spreading?” Harker demanded.
“Oh, I’ve got that figured out.” She pulled a handful of syringes out of her cabinet. “It spreads by sound. Every time an infected person uses their magic, the song of that spell spreads.”
Sound, huh? Now, that was a new one.
“Song? As in Siren’s Song?” I asked. “Could sirens be behind this?”
“Perhaps. The infected people are showing signs of being compelled. But I’ve never heard of sirens who could bestow people with new abilities,” Nerissa told me.
“Are you familiar with the drug the Legion sometimes gives its soldiers before they face hell’s army?” Nero asked.
“Yes, it’s an anti-compulsion drug.” She nodded. “Good idea. I’ll try to cook up something.” She held up the first syringe. “But first I need to test each of you. I’ve found the identifying magic in all the infected people, a magic mark in their blood.”
She drew blood from Drake first. “Sorry,” she said after looking at it under her microscope. “You’re infected.”
He glanced at Ivy. “How long until it takes me over?”
“I’m not sure. We’d best lock you up just in case.”
She tested Nero and Harker next. Both were clear.
“I think angels are unlikely to become infected due to the high amount of Nectar in their blood.” She looked up from her microscope and gave me a strange look.
“What?” I asked. It was my blood she was looking at now. “Do I have cooties?”
“You’re clear. But you have an unusually high Nectar count in your blood. And it’s coupled with…Venom.”
“Oh.” I tried to make my response as noncommittal as possible.
“Nectar and Venom, intertwined. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” She chewed on her lower lip. “It could be the infection in a mutated form.”
“No, she’s clear,” Nero told her.
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re linked, so I would know if her magic were infected.”
“So you’re saying she’s…always been like this?” Nerissa began mixing potion ingredients over a small cauldron.
Harker was watching us all very closely.
“You witnessed what she did at Storm Castle, draining the Venom from Basanti. Surviving it. You must have already realized what it meant,” Nero said.
“Yes.” Harker looked at me. “You can wield both light and dark magic.”
Some considered that a magical impossibility. The gods would call it blasphemy.
“What are you going to do about it?” I asked him. “Wait, no. Don’t answer that. I’m not sure I can believe the answer.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Leda. I would never do that.” His eyes darted to Nero. “Are you going to put that in your report?”
“No.”
“This is remarkable.” Nerissa held up a vial of sparkling liquid. It looked like carbonated water. “I’ve used Leda’s magic to create something that will hold off the effects of the contagion, at least until her magic breaks down inside the potion. The dark and light mix does a marvelous job of confusing Angel Fever, making it unable to connect.”
“So I’m immune?” I asked her.
“Yes. If only my potion made other people immune too. It’s not a cure, but it is a temporary fix. The true cure to the condition is Nectar, but that cure would kill the infected person.” She injected a dose of the potion into her own arm. “But my potion will buy us time to find a true cure.”
“How long?” Harker asked.
“A few hours at most.”
Which meant we had very little time.
Bella ran into the lab. “Leda,” she said, breathless.
“Bella, great timing,” I replied. “We have something that might hold off the Angel Fever. At least for a little while. Bring the supernatural leaders here so we can inoculate them.”
“Stash, half the elementals, and Heather, Constantine Wildman’s other aide, just jumped through the ballroom’s windows,” she said.
“They’re infected?”
She nodded.
“We have to get them back before they spread the infection,” I told everyone.
“It’s too late for that, Leda.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Come with me and see for yourselves.”
We followed her upstairs, onto the big tiled terrace on the roof. From here, we had a pretty good view of the city. Supernaturals had flooded the streets, running faster than a train, streaming like a river out of the city. And they were all heading toward the Black Plains.
21 The Supernatural Army
I watched the infected supernaturals leave the city, running fast toward the Black Plains like a river of lost souls. I wasn’t sure if their departure was good or bad. At least it meant Angel Fever wouldn’t continue to spread inside the city. But why were they leaving? Whoever was controlling them must have had a reason to engineer this magical infection—a reason beyond mere mass hysteria. Was summoning them onto the Black Plains just the next stage in this master plan? Was it an omen of a great war to come?
Harker had ordered our building to be locked down. Now that Angel Fever had spread to the Legion, we didn’t want to add our numbers to the collective might of the swelling army outside.
“It’s taking longer for the magic contagion to infect our soldiers than it did to infect other supernaturals, thanks to the amount of Nectar in our blood. And our willpower,” Nerissa said when we returned to her lab. “The higher a soldier’s rank, the longer it takes for Angel Fever to set in.”
Harker frowned at her. “We agreed we weren’t using that name.”
“You agreed that Harker,” Basanti said as she entered the room.
“I’m in charge.”
“I don’t think anyone is in charge of this situation.” Basanti looked at Nero. “The building is fully locked down.”
“Good,” he replied. “You, Leda, Harker, and I will follow the army to the Black Plains to assess the threat.”
Bella walked into the lab with the two vampires, Constantine Wildman, the Sea King, and the Fire King.
Harker shot them a look loaded with nightmare promises. “If any of you know what’s going on, speak now.”
The supernatural leaders remained stubbornly silent.
“He knows something.” I looked at the Sea King.
The leader of the city’s water and ice elementals lifted his hands in feigned innocence. “I know nothing.”
I pulled out my phone.
“We have a problem,” the Sea King’s voice spoke out of the speakers. “We need to deal with it before the other elementals find out—or worse yet, the Legion. Tell Holden to come to me.”