He nodded. "I understand."

"Justin, we can't let the battle mages attack," Elyssa said. "We'll find another way to capture Kassus."

I clenched my fists, trying to keep my anger down. How could Elyssa do this to me? To my mom? Didn't she see what was at stake?

Hutchins's gaze intensified as he seemed to notice something in the front of the room.

I followed his gaze to see a blue-tinged bubble surrounding the Darkwater people. The muzzles of the machine guns poked through it.

"A shield to block magic attacks," he said. "The bullets and machine guns can go through it, but the mines can't," he said. "They're not powerful enough to punch through."

"We waited too long," Elyssa said. Her troubled eyes met mine. "Now we'll be lucky if we can do anything to stop them."

Her words stung me even if she said them without malice. I still didn't believe attacking these men was the right thing to do. Not because I didn't want to protect the leyworms or the babies, but because Kassus was the whole reason we set up this operation. It seemed short-sighted to go through with it otherwise because we'd lose the element of surprise. With Kassus and his men, that might be the only thing preventing us from ending up dead. Elyssa might have the right to give the commands, but I couldn't be afraid to let her know I disagreed.

"Stand down," I said. "We wait for Kassus."

Elyssa arched an eyebrow. "Since when are you authorized to give commands to these men?"

"Maybe I'm not," I said. "But I called together this operation. I came up with the plan. Maybe I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but Kassus is the goal, not protecting the leyworms or the nursery." I motioned my head toward the monsters. "Do you really think machine guns and fancy bullets are going to kill them? The minute they open fire, the leyworms will slaughter them."

"I don't—" Elyssa began.

I interrupted her. "Answer me this: If we go ahead with the operation while they have a shield up, what are the odds of achieving our goals?" I glanced at Hutchins.

"Substantially reduced," he said. "The mines will only faze those at the outer edges. Those in the center will be more protected. Some of the mines were moved by the Darkwater people when they cleared out the place to set their guns, which will also result in reduced impact."

"Do you agree?" I asked Elyssa.

She looked at me as if puzzled by my behavior. "Yes."

"Then we stand down and wait."

Hutchins looked to Elyssa.

She regarded me for a long moment before nodding. "Stand down."

I turned back toward the Darkwater men in the front as they made final preparations, loading the machine guns with bullet belts. One of them set up another tripod that looked a lot like a mortar launcher while another opened a case and removed a rocket launcher. A few choice curses escaped my lips. Kassus obviously believed in all or nothing. I didn't know if a hail of bullets could kill the leyworms, or possibly the cupids, but the man was an evil son of a bitch for taking this path.

I scanned the cavern and decided on a different plan. "Hutchins, see the cluster of stalactites above the attackers?"

"We call them OPFOR," he said. "Opposing force."

"Whatever," I said, waving away his jargon. "Can you get a charge up there?"

He regarded it for a moment. Nodded. "We have a flying carpet we could use. The ceiling is high enough the OPFORs won't see us."

"Do it," I said. "If they open fire, we'll bring down the roof on their heads."

"Yes, sir," he said, not even bothering to check with Elyssa, and vanished into the shadows.

"We're going to have a talk after this," Elyssa said.

I realized I wasn't angry with her for her earlier decision. I also realized I wasn't particularly concerned if she was mad at me now. There was something about taking responsibility for all these lives that weighed heavily on my shoulders in some ways, while lightening the burden in others. Maybe I'd gone a little cold, or maybe I'd just accepted that a natural part of leadership was accepting loss.

I simply nodded in reply to her statement. Even though the stalactites above the Darkwater people were barely visible from the floor, I couldn't actually see the roof of the cave. My supernatural night vision wouldn't reach that far. I thought I noticed a shadowy shape moving far above, but couldn't be sure.

"How will you feel about killing those people?" Elyssa said.

My head turned sharply toward her, surprised by the question. The answer came to me without thinking about it. "Probably sick to my stomach," I said, especially considering how gruesome it would be. "But Kassus might think it was an accident with their explosive weapons instead of an outright attack."

She nodded. "I wasn't accusing you of anything. I wanted you to think this through as opposed to a non-lethal strike."

"Considering the circumstances now, I don't think non-lethal is a possibility." I spared another glance above, anxious to know the explosives were ready. "If we fail to incapacitate them, we'll have a full-scale battle on our hands with Templars versus battle mages." In my head, it sounded geek-tastic, at least if it were on a movie screen. In real life, it would be messy as hell.

"I agree," Elyssa said. "But only because we waited."

"I thought we were going to talk about this later," I said without turning my gaze from the ceiling.

She made a very unladylike growl. "Yes, we are."

Somehow, I managed not to gulp.

Hutchins appeared. "Charges are set. We have two options. One will blow off the entire group of stalactites, in effect increasing the odds of killing nearly all OPFORs. The second option will only bring down a few select stalactites and offer incapacitation with minimal deaths. My man also arranged the charges to match the explosion signature of a mortar launcher so it won't look as if a third party engineered it."

He read my mind. It was obvious why Hutchins was on special ops. "Excellent. We'll need to wait until they start firing."

"Just tell me if you want lethal or non-lethal."

"We'll try non-lethal first. Maybe that will send them packing for the day and bring Kassus back to do the job right."

"Yes, sir," he said.

I was beginning to like being in charge.

Someone with Darkwater shouted orders. I glanced at them to see people manning the machine guns. The mortar and rocket launchers were out of sight. I wasn't sure if they planned to use them for the first salvo or not.

"Aim!" shouted the Darkwater person.

A dozen machineguns swiveled toward the leyworms.

"Fire!"

The cavern exploded with noise. Tracers lanced through the air as bullets whizzed past. The dragons bellowed. Twisted. Gigantor loosed a terrific scream of pain.

A shock of white light exploded in the cavern, blinding me temporarily. "Stop!" cried a voice so loud it rang in my ears.

The guns stopped firing. I blinked my eyes, waiting for the bright afterimages to fade. When they finally readjusted, I looked to the front to see Darkwater people rubbing their eyes, looking dazed and confused. The shield had vanished, and the machine guns hung limp, smoke rising from the ends of the barrels.

I spotted a man in a top hat, wearing a white suit and a light blue bowtie. A gray goatee and a long white staff identified the man readily enough.

Jeremiah Conroy.

Chapter 31

"You will leave," he said in a voice loud enough to wake the dead, pointing his staff toward the door.

The men wasted no time packing their equipment and hightailing it out of there while Elyssa and I exchanged confused looks. Hutchins watched Jeremiah like an eagle, never taking his eye off the man.

"What's going on?" Elyssa whispered.

I shrugged, confused as she was. Why had Jeremiah called off the attack? Didn't he own Darkwater? Hadn't Kassus told him about his plans to engage gargantuan dragons in open warfare? On the other hand, I felt immensely relieved I wouldn't have to bring the roof down.

After the last Darkwater person left, Jeremiah walked toward the dragons. My heart raced with fear. I knew what this man was capable of. On the other hand, we now had him surrounded by Templars and could probably knock him out and take him prisoner. He could order Kassus to unseal the truck.

Bam! Good guys win.

Before I could give the command, the red dragon came forward, lowering its giant head next to Jeremiah. Its snout stood nearly twice as tall as the Arcane. Jeremiah patted the snout, almost as one might pet a dog. The dragon made a snuffling noise and rumbled. Jeremiah raised an eyebrow, and I saw a shield flicker around his body. Then he bowed to the leyworm, backed away, and left.

The command to apprehend died on my lips. Had the leyworm warned him somehow? And why in the hell had it let Jeremiah Conroy pet it?

"What the hell is going on?" Hutchins said, his stoic exterior faltering.

"I really need to have a talk with those dragons," I said. "Gigantor acted like he and Jeremiah are best buddies."

"Well, now we know why he stopped the Darkwater idiots from hurting them," Elyssa said. "He's friends with them."

Hutchins looked at a device on his wrist. "Area is clear of OPFOR."

I stood and stretched as questions raced through my head. "There's a lot about Jeremiah Conroy that doesn't make sense."

"Like how he knew about the Cyrinthian Rune, and how to disable the shield around it, for one thing," Elyssa said.

"Or why he apparently hasn't given Daelissa the rune yet," I said, "assuming Mr. Gray and Lornicus told me the truth."

"He's definitely not a Seraphim?" Elyssa said.

"I don't think so." I tapped a finger against my chin. "According to Ivy, he was against the assassination attempts on your father and the others. He's had multiple chances to kill me—"