Dragons & Dwarves by S. Andrew Swann

Author:S. Andrew Swann [Swann, S. Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

I could have blacked out. The effort of what I had just done had sapped every ounce of my strength. It had tapped resources that I didn’t know were there until I found them missing. The thought of not moving at all was tempting. I had done my bit, I only had to wait for Nesmith . . .

Of course, it probably wouldn’t make much of an impression if she found me out cold on the floor, and it would probably blow my chance of talking to her without the possibility of Phillips overhearing or intervening. And that was why I was here.

I sat up slowly. My flesh felt so weak that it seemed the sheer weight of my skeleton would tear my bones free to clatter on the ground under me. My brain spun with a sick vertigo when I sat up, my mind tumbling in a viscous black liquid with no sense of up or down. My gut spasmed as I tried to heave up the contents of an empty stomach.

When the world stopped moving, somehow I was on my hands and knees. Spots darted in front of my eyes, as if I were squeezing them shut, but they were open—which I confirmed when I ran my hand over my face.

Pushing myself upright was like fighting hundred-pound weights draped across my shoulders. My knees threatened to buckle as I stumbled toward the table. My hand found it by slamming into the edge with a knife-sharp blow that felt as if it—in my weakened condition—could snap my bone.

Fortunately, my body’s structural integrity hadn’t been compromised by the spell, just my sense of it. I didn’t suffer a compound fracture, just a numbed and bruised hand.

I leaned against the table and inched along until I bumped into one of the chairs.

I didn’t want Nesmith to find me on the ground, but I lacked the strength to stand upright—even long enough to find the light switch. I slid into the chair feeling as if I only weighed fifty pounds, all held together with tissue paper.

I rubbed my hand; at some point during the ritual the dressings had come off the old wounds. My palms were moist, probably with my own blood.

I waited.

My one fear was that I was so close to collapse that I might lose consciousness before Nesmith met with me. Her reaction would probably be to hospitalize me under police guard, which would give Phillips an opportunity to finish the job that O’Malley started.

I couldn’t leave this room until Nesmith had heard everything. Until I had got her to set up a meeting with Rayburn. If we could do it quickly enough, it wouldn’t matter how secure it was, Phillips wouldn’t have time to react.

Until then . . .

It felt as if I’d been sitting, waiting, for hours. The darkness made time expand, stretching out into an infinity of fatigue before and ahead of me. I might have blacked out again, but I had no way of telling in the unchanging environment.

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