Triad Magic by ’Nathan Burgoine

Author:’Nathan Burgoine [Burgoine, ’Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2024-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Seventeen

Luc’s Mercedes covered the distance between their home and the address Denis had supplied quickly, mostly thanks to a disregard for speed limits. Luckily, no police turned up, and he pulled into a home only three streets away from where Catharine herself lived. He’d tried both Catharine and Anna twice more on the drive over, having gotten the phone number of the latter along with her address from Denis, but to no luck.

He parked the car without much care and, after a glance to ensure no mortal eyes were on him—a feat made easier by the tall hedges and private yard of Anna’s home—he used his vampire graces to cross the distance to Anna’s front door between blinks.

He reached for the doorbell, then hesitated as the faint scent of something caught in his nose.

He forced air inward, allowing his predator senses to sharpen, and this time the clarity of what it was sharpened into an instinctual panic.

Smoke.

He pressed the doorbell and followed with three sharp knocks on the door.

“Anna!” he called out, when there was no answer.

He stepped back, looking up at the roof of the building and allowing his vision to sharpen as much as possible. If there was smoke visible on the outside of the building, it might already be too late, but if not…

No sign yet.

Luc kicked the door, putting the strength of his grace behind it, and it flew open, the lock shattering and taking splinters of wood and the door’s frame with it. He spotted the smoke at the far end of the revealed simple, neatly organized entrance hall, still faint and swirling but starting to seep in from behind a closed door.

The rear door of the house, visible through an opening at the other end of the hallway, lay ominously open.

Merde. He had no choice, but this would not be easy.

Luc forced himself to take a step, and the residency of Anna’s house snapped into being to resist him, pressing hard against his chest and weighing him down as though he was attempting to walk at the bottom of a lake, its thick surface of mud sucking at his feet rather than the actual wood floor on which his foot landed.

His muscles already ached from the effort of a single step.

I am the duke of this city and I have more power than any other vampire I have ever encountered, Luc thought. I am not just vampire, I have the power of a demon and the magic of a wizard. I will enter this home.

A second step accomplished. A third. The fourth trembled, and the smoke seeping from beneath the door grew thicker. The smoke itself wouldn’t be a danger to Anna. Their kind didn’t breathe.

But fire devoured their flesh with eagerness.

“Anna!” he yelled, straining against the barriers of protection. Both hands shook, and a numbness was spreading up from his toes and fingertips. Residency abhorred his kind, fought the uninvited with a magic as ancient as the very notion of home.

I should have brought Curtis.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.