A second song joined the first. Nicola Pallas’ voice flowed from the PA system, filling the air with The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” sung in her own operatic style. Lena hesitated. All around me, people collapsed to the ground, caught between two competing magics.

“Thank you, Babs,” I whispered. Nicola’s song was a recording of human magic, and wasn’t powerful enough to fully overcome the sirens’ song. It was a Band-Aid, not a cure, and I didn’t know how much time it would buy us.

Lena shoved her own earplugs into place, then pointed to Franklin Tower, a quizzical look on her face. ‹That’s new.›

A matte black wall twenty feet high surrounded my building.

‹Vince’s doing, probably. Using one of Talulah’s projects.› Talulah had been studying the feasibility of space elevator technology. The sheer volume of material we’d need to create a working tether into Earth orbit would char any book to ash long before we’d climbed a fraction of the distance. Talulah thought the key was to find a way of using mundane materials for the elevator, with a minimum of magic to act as a catalyst for self-replication.

I hadn’t read all the books she was using, several of which were in Spanish, but the principle was sound, drawing in part on research into carbon aerogel from the California Institute of Technology.

Thankfully, Vince hadn’t blocked off the other towers. Only a trio of National Guardsmen stood watch at the hospital, the magic-dampers shielding them from the songs.

Their weapons snapped up to point at us. One guard shouted something I couldn’t hear.

I raised my hands and loosened one of the earplugs. “You hear those songs? If you don’t let me stop them, they’ll kill every unprotected person within these walls.”

“New Millennium is under attack, and there’s a warrant for your arrest. You need to set down your books and lie facedown on the floor right now.”

I shrugged. “Did I mention I’m bulletproof?”

He pulled the trigger. Bullets sparked and fell as they struck my shield. The instant they stopped shooting, Lena darted in, striking their guns aside and following up with the flat of her swords.

All three guards were human. Even with their dampers weakening Lena and her weapons, they didn’t have a chance.

I crammed the earplugs in tighter and stepped past the guards. Inside the lobby, patients and staff stumbled about like zombies. One woman struck her head repeatedly against a wall. Blood painted her face and the front of her shirt. A man at the front desk bled from both ears where he’d gouged them with his fingernails.

I grabbed the first of the guards by the feet, and dragged him over to the woman. The moment the magic-damper’s field touched her, she sank to the floor and began to weep.