Cornelius make the kind of high-detail model the most expensive architectural firms did up when they wanted to impress clients. Enclosed in banker’s glass, the diorama took up the whole center of the room. It even included the surrounding walks and cherry trees, and around it and through it, with a draftsman’s precision, Dr. Cornelius had traced the kinds of circles and symbols we’d seen at the Wicked Witch’s house. To me, the lines looked more solid than the surface they’d been drawn on. Beyond the diorama and opposite the door, a solid display cabinet of the same thick banker’s glass was even more disturbing; it held dolls of us.
The Sentinels were contracted with Adrai’s Figures, a company that produced porcelain celebrity dolls, and each of us had a run of a few hundred. The eighteen-inch dolls were individually hand painted and outfitted in hand-stitched reproductions of our costumes, but as high quality as those were, I’d heard of artists who bought these expensive collector’s dolls and repainted them so realistically that enlarged photos could almost be mistaken for studio-shots of the real hero. They re-dressed the figures in just as much detail, and could resell the artistically enhanced dolls for ten to fifty times their original price. We were looking at a full lineup of the redone dolls, each standing inside its own magic circle of realer-than-real lines.
“Our biggest fan’s figure-collection doesn’t look this good,” Quin said.
She didn’t seem at all bothered by it, but looking close at my doll made me feel like I’d wandered into a funhouse’s mirror-room, and when I looked back at the model of the Dome I got the dizzying conviction that I was looking at the real thing from high over Grant Park. Laying a hand on the glass, I caught Dr. Cornelius watching me out of the corner of his eye.
“Each figure has been ceremonially named,” he said as we stared at the displays. “And I’ve tucked twists of hair with threads from your costumes into their outfits. Sympathetic magic is crude, but effective. These are essentially sophisticated poppets; they’re warded against magical attack, so you are too. The same with the Dome; I had them use scrapings of paint and concrete from the actual Dome in the model.”
Riptide crossed himself. “Dios. You cast a spell on us?”
“Yes, and before you decide to burn me at the stake, I conferred with Father Nolan—the magic tradition I use is not geotic, and therefore falls under the category of accepted magic traditions recognized in the Pope’s encyclical on breakthroughs and the supernatural.” He smiled drily. “If you’re Baptist, you might have a problem.”
That settled Riptide, but he didn’t look happy. Chakra simply smiled; she’d probably felt the enchantment happening, though I was sure it wasn’t the same as her psychic-tantric magic.
“In any case,” Blackstone said, “this is why all Hecate could send against us herself yesterday was a golem. Projections like the demon that Astra and Artemis encountered can’t cross the Dome’s new wards and we can’t be targeted directly. What she can do when we’re face-to-face may be another thing entirely, so nobody get cocky.”
I stared at Blackstone’s doll, circled by protective symbols that seemed to me to glow. I couldn’t shake the wooginess of it, but there would be no box for Blackstone now. Whatever else happened, we could face it as a team.
I was still glad to get out of there, but as the others dispersed Dr. Cornelius pulled me aside.
“Astra,” he said. “May I take a minute?” There was nothing left of the strung-out druggy I’d met in LA. He’d even ditched the pin-studded coat for a black three-piece suit with a silver talisman where the tie would have been.
“How’s Orb?” I asked. We’d seen little and heard less from the unnervingly silent PI since the second night.
“Fine. Eager to get back to her practice. Look.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m no hero. The kind of fights you guys get in… I can’t stick around for that. I’m going back to my research, but the wards are the best I can make for you people. And—” he watched me closely “you felt them, didn’t you?”
I nodded, rubbing arms that had developed goose-bumps under my sleeves, and he grunted.
“In the attack, I released two of the three Words given to me in Aztiluth—the words for Roeled and Phthenoth, the decans of protection and healing.”
“Released?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t speak them so much as let them speak themselves. You feel