Realization dawned on Nathaniel’s face. “Like zombies. Like they were under some kind of compulsion.”

I nodded. “How much do you want to bet that Azazel made sure there was some kind of fail-safe in the serum? If Therion tried defying Azazel, then dear old Dad would be able to bring all of the vamps that had taken the formula under his control.”

“If you exert your will, the vampires that have taken the serum will not be able to resist you, just as they would not have been able to resist Azazel,” Nathaniel said.

“That’s what I’m counting on,” I said.

I pointed to the giant bowl that protruded from the top of Soldier Field. “What do you think? Can we fit all of the vampires in there?”

“Even if they cannot all fit inside the building, they will gather near it if your ability to call them to you works,” Nathaniel said. “But I think it will be sufficient.”

“I hope it will,” I said, and we flew toward the Chicago Bears home field.

If there were more vampires than could fit inside a giant football stadium, then our troubles were bigger than I thought. Despite my newfound power and my expressed confidence to Nathaniel, I wasn’t as certain as I seemed. When we’d flown over the city as the invasion started, it seemed that there were millions of vampires, but that couldn’t be. There was nowhere for all of them to hide. Except…

“Nathaniel, where did all those vampires come from in the first place?” I said. “I can’t believe we never thought about this before.”

Nathaniel frowned. “I presumed that Therion and Azazel gathered vampires from other regions to them. The courts in Chicago were certainly not that big.”

“But where was Therion keeping them all?” I asked, remembering the vampires that had poured into Daley Plaza. “They had to have somewhere to gather.”

“They seemed to be coming from the underground,” Nathaniel said.

I nodded. “There could be thousands more down there, in the pedways and the freight tunnels.”

“If any of them have taken the serum, then you should still be able to call them to you,” Nathaniel said.

“What if not all of them have taken it?” I asked.

“As you say, let us worry about it at another time,” he said. “The majority of the vampires that we saw were strolling under the sun, and you know that you can reach them. Once we have wiped out the majority, then we can deal with the stragglers of this infestation.”

“Okay,” I said, trying not to worry. “Okay.”

We approached the museum campus and Soldier Field from the north, almost perfectly retracing the path we had walked just a few days before. The surface of Lake Michigan was covered in Alerian’s fog for as far as the eye could see. Beneath the fog there were dark shadows moving.

“No one is ever going to come back to this city,” I said, my heart breaking a little. “And if anyone does, they’ll never truly feel safe here again.”

Nathaniel followed my gaze, saw the shadows shifting. “You do not know that Alerian intends harm to the people of the city,” he said, but he didn’t sound very certain.

“He doesn’t have to intend harm in order for people to get caught in the cross fire,” I said.

We flew over the top of the large bowl that perched on top of the original structure of Soldier Field. I lowered down to the center of the field, right on the fifty-yard line.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen when I try to do this,” I warned Nathaniel. “You might want to be ready to run.”

He looked insulted. “I would not leave you any more than you would leave me. Shall I help you? I can boost your power, as we did before.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. We’d end up na**d and rolling in the grass instead of wiping out the vampires. “Just make sure nothing attacks me while I try to draw the vamps here, okay?”

Nathaniel nodded. “Very well.”

I closed my eyes and drew deep within myself, searching for the spark of magic that came from Azazel. It was buried deep. I hadn’t acknowledged my relationship with Azazel for some time, but blood didn’t lie. He was inside me, whether I wanted him to be there or not.

When I found the source of Azazel’s power I drew it forth so that it was at the forefront of my magic. Underneath that stream I layered my Agent’s strength. Finally, I took both abilities, wound them together, and used the power of the Morningstar to push the call forth. The call of blood. It poured out of me, seeking blood that had the same qualities as mine.

My magic quested all over the city, long tentacles brushing up against living things in search of what it wanted. I felt the presence of other creatures, other things that lay in wait should the vampires fail. Some of those creatures felt me, too, and the wise ones fled.

I would take care of the stupid ones later.

My power touched the humans that remained in Chicago, whether imprisoned by Therion or hiding in their own warrens, little rabbits trembling with fear as they felt me pass by.

The Agents hunched over their desks or collecting souls paused. They felt something, but they couldn’t figure out what. The call of the Agent’s blood had tugged on them for a moment, but since they didn’t also possess the blood of Azazel, it passed them by.

Only two looked up and knew it was me, and they stood facing each other across a desk.

“Maddy?” J.B. said, looking into thin air.

“Black,” Sokolov growled.

I kept going until I found a vampire that had been infected by the serum. I lit the fire of compulsion inside it, and then I found that I did not have to draw each vampire to me individually. Azazel had made the formula so that when one was compelled, all would have to follow. I pulled them toward me, made it impossible for them to resist.

I could feel them in my head, all of them, thousands upon thousands of vampires. They emerged from buildings and sewers. They abandoned their posts at the human encampment, released victims they had been in the midst of torturing. They surged toward me, like a great, black wave.

There was one I searched for among the many, one that I did not feel.

Therion. He was smart enough to have realized that any gift from a fallen angel came with a price. He hadn’t taken the serum.

A moment later, I did feel his presence. But not the way I thought I would.

Therion’s power snaked along the mindless rows of marching vampires, making them pause, making them turn back to their master.

“No,” I said, and drew them toward me again, pushing more power into my spell.

Therion tugged back, trying to re-exert his influence over the horde. I sensed some of them waking up from my compulsion, turning back to him.

“No,” I snarled, and this time I really put some force into it. I sent a pulse of magic through the original spell, and shot it inside Therion’s.

The vampire king faltered, choking on my magic. I sensed him drawing away. His minions continued on toward me.

I smiled as the vampires marched as one body, without mind, toward me, toward their doom.

16

I OPENED MY EYES AS THE FIRST OF THE VAMPIRES came within reach of Soldier Field. I used my power to open all of the gates. The vampires spilled inside, moving inexorably toward me.

They entered the stadium and filed into the seats in an orderly fashion, first filling up the bottom rows and gradually moving toward the top.

“Are you making them do that?” Nathaniel asked.

“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t have a long conversation at the moment. It was taking a lot of effort to hold on to so many vampires.

“I cannot believe you have such a fine measure of control over them,” Nathaniel said. “You could make them do anything you wanted. You could make them your own army.”

I didn’t care for the speculative tone in his voice, which sounded a little too much like the old Nathaniel for my liking.

“I don’t want my own army,” I said. “And it’s not easy to do this, you know. It would be exhausting to keep them all under this kind of control forever.”

“Mmm,” he said.

I didn’t know whether to interpret his “mmm” as an “I understand, just a thought” kind of noise or an “I still think having a vampire army is a good idea and we’ll revisit this later” kind of noise. No matter what it meant, I wasn’t going to change my mind. Nothing on this earth would let me allow these vampires to live after what they had done to my city.

I don’t know how long we stood there. The tide of vampires swelled, then trickled, and finally stopped.

All of the vampires sat or stood inside Soldier Field. They had crowded into the aisles and spilled over onto the field. They had pushed within ten yards of where Nathaniel and I stood. Now they all waited, standing eerily still and watching me without blinking.

It should have been noisy in my head, with so many minds connected to mine, but it wasn’t. In this state the vampires had no thoughts of their own. It was like being bound to thousands of empty balloons.

“Let’s go up,” I said to Nathaniel.

We rose above the field, and as we did the sun broke through the storm clouds for a moment. My wings were illuminated by the sun. All of the vampires followed me with their eyes, their heads tilting back in perfect unison.

“Therion,” I called, feeling along the line of energy between us for the remnants of his magic.

I gathered all my power to me. It felt endless, a vast reservoir that had always been there without my being able to access it. Until now.

I sensed Therion turning toward me, his cautious attention.

“You’d better run,” I said.

I let the light of every sun in the universe shine through me. No serum of Azazel’s could withstand that kind of power.

The vampires didn’t even throw up their arms to protect themselves. They just stood there, thousands and thousands of monsters of the night, entranced by the blaze of light that poured from me. Then they were gone. Just gone. No flaking bodies, no ash, not even a smudge of black where they had stood.