Dark Mage Rises by J. J. Green

Author:J. J. Green [Green, J. J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: InfiniteBook
Published: 2018-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

As Carina sat at the edge of the bedroom in her rented apartment, she recalled removing the Sherrerr tracers from her siblings when they were escaping on the shuttle. That had been so much easier. For one thing, she’d seen the tracer that the Dirksens had cut out of Darius, so she knew the size and appearance of the devices. And she’d known almost precisely where to find them in her siblings’ bodies.

By contrast, removing the Dirksen tracers from her intestines was going to be like hunting in the dark with a double-edged knife. One false step and she could cause herself some serious harm.

Carina swallowed. The truth was, she was almost certainly going to inflict some damage. She doubted the best mage in the galaxy could Cast with the accuracy required to lift out the tiny tracers without affecting the surrounding tissue, even without operating blindfolded. No, there was no point in kidding herself—this was going to hurt.

She took out the bottle of elixir she’d carried with her all the way from Langley’s mansion. She’d hoarded the liquid, saving it for emergencies just like this. She unscrewed the cap. Then she paused.

She couldn’t figure out why the Dirksens hadn’t picked her up yet. Should she have given Reyes a chance to explain? No. That would have been too risky. The information he held might have been useful yet she felt she’d made the best choice in the circumstances. It was time to get as far away from the Dirksens and the Sherrerrs as she could—after she found her brothers and sisters.

Carina realized she was going over her decision as a way of putting off something she dreaded to do. She refocused and mentally reached out, feeling for the tracers. Now that she knew they were there, it wasn’t too hard to sense the devices in the depths of her gut. Their material was different from the rest of her flesh, but she couldn’t tell how many there were. The tracers were all bunched together.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to try to Transport all of them out of her at once. Carina was fearful of accidentally pinching out a large piece of her intestine at the same time. Although she could Cast Heal and fix the injury, she might not be able to do that if she was in too much pain or had passed out.

She breathed in and out, deeply and slowly, and centered her mind on the tiny devices embedded in her intestines. Carina wrote the Transport character and sent out the Cast. She winced as she mentally gripped a tracer and lifted it out and away, placing it on the floor beside her. She opened an eye to look at the thing. It was a tiny metal bead—a red-stained, silver fleck on the grimy floor. One.

She couldn’t feel any ill effects yet. No pain or even discomfort. Carina took another sip of elixir. It was time to remove number two.

***

Carina wasn’t sure if she’d removed seven or eight tracers.

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