Shadow Magic: Six Strong Heroines of Urban Fantasy by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: mystery, magic, werewolf, shifters, free book, Norse god, artifact hunter, demon, adventure, gamer, shifter, sorceress, free box set, urban fantasy
Publisher: Wetknee Books
Published: 2020-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Coming up out from the depths of the abbey into the gift shop a few minutes after Max slipped up the stairs, I kept my head bowed, my eyes on the shuffling form that preceded me down the narrow aisle. The irony of the Devil wrapped up in clerical clothes wasn’t lost on me. Fortunately, the woman at the cash register wasn’t paying attention to us but to the elderly couple buying postcards, so we got out into the sunshine without incident.

“There’s a bench to the right, three—well, maybe five paces, the way you’re walking now.”

“Always so critical.” For all his bravado, the Devil wasn’t looking so good. He sank down on the bench like a man fifty years past dead. I perched beside him, arranging his elbows on his knees, lacing his fingers together so that he almost gave the appearance of being lost in contemplative prayer.

“Wanna tell me how you ended up in Barnabus’s bed?”

His chuckle was his only response for a moment, and I stared diligently at the side of his head, willing his secrets to spring forth.

Who was this guy, really?

Aleksander Kreios appeared foreign born, just as the Magician was, but their similarities ended there. As golden as the Magician was dark, Kreios’s large, sensuous eyes were jade green, his body sleekly built. The combination of high cheekbones and sculpted lips looked almost too perfect on a man, but the sexual aggression that lay barely restrained in the guy’s every move transcended everything as his defining characteristic. Even if he was practically dead at this point.

Which begged the question, why hadn’t Armaeus warned me that I’d be carrying around canned Master-of-Darkness?

I hit him up with the obvious question. “Why’d you come here?”

“That’s not necessary for you to know.”

“Uh-huh. You want me to include this little side trip in my report to Armaeus?”

“Only if you want to risk my annoyance.”

I eyed him. “Not gonna lie, that doesn’t seem like too much of a threat right now.”

The laugh seemed dredged up out of Kreios’s stomach, a rasping huff. “I can see why Armaeus never bothered to arrange an introduction between us. Where have you been all of my lives, Sara Wilde?”

“Just focus on breathing, big boy.” I squinted down the long cobbled street, praying for Max to hurry it up. “So walk me through this. Who picked you up at the Alfa Romeo dumping ground? Why did you come here?”

“Those were my associates.” Full stop.

“You’re not very good at this, you know. Where’d they go?”

Kreios lifted a hand to wave me off, but I batted it away. “Tell me, or I’ll call the Magician on the Batphone. I have to assume he’s got more family out here than Max.”

The Devil sighed heavily. “I did not bring my friends into the city. This is only partially their fight.”

“Yet they handed you over, gift wrapped, to Barnabus? Because it sure seemed like he was expecting you.”

I could see Kreios’s smile in profile. It was not a particularly good smile.

“‘Cowards die many deaths.

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