Last Dragon Standing (Heartstrikers #5)(8)
“I’m just shocked the phones are working,” Amelia said, winking at the Qilin. “Lucky break.”
“Very lucky,” Myron agreed. “There is absolutely no reason we should have internet access here in the DFZ, but we do. That’s hardly the strangest thing that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, though, so I’m not even going to question it.”
“Enough about how you got the information,” Chelsie growled. “What’s going on out there?”
“Everything and nothing,” General Jackson said, walking over to pick up the two personal pizzas that were cooling on the stove top. She placed one down in front of Julius and one down in front of the seat he’d squeezed in next to his, which was apparently for Marci. “Eat,” she ordered. “This will take a few minutes, and there’s no reason you have to be hungry during them.”
The general didn’t have to tell Marci twice. Now that pizza was on the table, her body was reminding her loudly that it hadn’t eaten since before she’d died. She practically dove into her chair, trying not to burn her tongue as she stuffed a slice of cheap, and surprisingly delicious, pepperoni pizza into her mouth.
“Good, isn’t it?” Amelia said. “I didn’t think there was any food left, but then I found a pile of those in the back of the freezer.” She wiggled her eyebrows at the Qilin, who was starting to look uncomfortable. “That’s lucky break number two. Now we just need to stumble onto your forgotten tequila stash and we’ll have a grand slam!” She turned her grin on Chelsie. “Can you kiss him or something? We need another luck blast so I can get a drink.”
“Amelia,” Chelsie said in a low, deadly voice, “shut up.”
The Spirit of Dragons lifted her hands helplessly and motioned for General Jackson to continue.
“Moving on,” Emily said irritably. “As Sir Myron predicted, the breaking of the Merlins’ seal has created a global crisis. As the epicenter of the breach, the DFZ was hit the hardest, but we have reports of dangerously elevated magic levels all over the globe.”
“Dangerously?” Julius said. “How dangerously?”
“That depends on where you were when it happened,” Myron said. “Not everyone was lucky enough to have a warded bunker nearby. But high as they are, the elevated magic levels probably won’t be fatal to healthy individuals. Highly unpleasant, certainly, but not deadly. The danger General Jackson refers to is more of a long-term problem.” He glanced at the glowing particles drifting up from the ground outside. “This is actually quite similar to the night magic first returned, only stronger. How much stronger varies depending on the local ambient magic, but the numbers I’ve seen generally seem to be clocking in at two to three hundred percent higher than normal.”
“But that still shouldn’t be more than humans can handle,” Marci said with her mouth full. “We didn’t make new magic. Everything that’s here now was here before the drought, and humanity handled it fine back then.”
“We did,” Myron admitted. “But while the raw amount is the same, the majority of the magic back then would have been tied up in natural systems, not dropped on people’s heads all at once. We don’t know if the world has ever experienced a flood of this magnitude before, but we can say for certain that no living human has ever been doused with this much free-floating magic. Unless they were able to flee to a warded location, as we were, new manifestations are inevitable.”
Julius went pale. “Manifestations?”
“He means new mages,” Marci explained. “The night the magic came back, a whole bunch of people with the right combination of genes were suddenly able to use magic. Most of those burned themselves out in the first hour. Another good chunk went crazy. Only a few could actually handle the change. It was only later, when mages started being born naturally and growing into their powers slowly, that magic stopped being a death sentence.”
“And you’re saying we’re going to see that again,” Julius finished with a frown. “But isn’t everyone who could be a mage one already?”
“Everyone that we’re aware of,” Myron said authoritatively. “But we’ve never been able to pin down the exact genetic combination that gives people the ability to consciously control magic because the range is too enormous. Half the human population has at least one of the markers for magical potential. It’s been theorized that those people failed to become mages not because they lacked the fundamental ability, but because magical levels were simply too low for them to access. Now that magic is shoving its way down their throats, however, that could change.”
“We might see a whole new wave of mages!” Marci said. “Assuming they don’t all go nuts first, of course. But everyone knows magic is real now, so the transition should be much smoother this time around.”
“That’s good for them,” Emily said. “But the situation right here and now is anything but. We have no official measurement devices left in the DFZ, but from the visual clues, Myron’s estimated that the magical levels here are much higher than the rest of the world’s.”
“At least a thousand percent higher than normal,” Myron agreed. “Maybe more.”
“And that’s why we can’t go outside,” Raven finished, turning on Amelia’s shoulder to give the frolicking forms of Ghost and the DFZ outside the evil eye. “True mortal spirits might be big enough to roll such power off their backs, but the rest of us are grounded. Even I can’t fly in a storm like this.”