Shadow Magic (Darkling Mage Book 1) by Nazri Noor & Nazri Noor

Author:Nazri Noor & Nazri Noor [Noor, Nazri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-06T05:00:00+00:00

12

“I can’t believe she’s keeping us in suspense like this,” Bastion mumbled. His mouth was pushed into the collar of his leather jacket, his voice muffled. Couldn’t blame him, it was cold in the alley. “She’s doing this on purpose, I bet.”

I shrugged and shook my head. “She wanted us to scout ahead and make sure the pigeon was here.” I nudged the dead bird with my toe. It was rock hard, from both rigor mortis and the chill of the pavement. “Which reminds me.”

I fired off a quick text message to let Prudence know we’d found the tether. She had sent us ahead to look over the pigeon and make sure that it wouldn’t move again. I took that to mean that she was worried about a cat coming across it and carrying it off. I wasn’t exactly sure how that would work out – what would even happen to an animal that ate an entity’s tether? – but at least we’d secured the damn thing.

My skin crawled as I heard tiny paws scuttling in the dark corners of the alley. Ah. So we arrived just before the scavengers did. I kicked at the ground, scuffing my heels loudly, just to scare the rats away from the pigeon. Valero’s rodents really had gone unhinged since Resheph’s death. I reached for my phone, trying to distract myself from the squirming march of glistening, furry bodies ducking in and out of dumpsters.

There was already a notification on my screen. “K” was all that Prudence wrote in her text. Typical. We all knew she was efficient, almost surgically so, but I would have appreciated more information. She’d gone to do the reagent shopping herself, doubtless to get Bastion to stop whining about the puppy. I offered to go with her, but it became clear quite quickly that she meant for me to distract him while she went about collecting what we needed.

“Not a puppy,” he said again.

Sorry, not distract. I think babysit would have been the right word. I sighed.

“Listen. I’m as against the idea as you are, but if that’s what we need to do to get the job done – ”

My words hung in the air. I couldn’t say it. I had been more dedicated to my work for the Lorica than I had been to virtually anything else in my life, more than my shitty treatment of my high school education, and certainly more than any of the odd jobs I picked up after. But a dog?

Hell, a lamb, for that matter? Where was Prudence even going to find either one of those at midnight in Valero? And that wasn’t even the point. I realized that part of casting the circle to enter an entity’s domicile or to even attract its attention involved sacrifice. The offerings, like the fortune cookie Thea crumbled, or the drop of blood. They were necessary components for completing the ritual, for closing the circle.

But I still had my limits. “Okay. Fine. I’m with you. Are we sure about what we’re doing here? I mean, a puppy.

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