Wicked Words by M J Scott

Author:M J Scott [Scott, M J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780648481430
Goodreads: 56364443
Publisher: emscott enterprises
Published: 2021-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

About half an hour later, I stood in the garden near the shed and tried to ignore my skin crawling as Cassandra inspected the patch of ground where Damon had fallen.

We'd watched the footage from Damon's security feeds—apparently imps photographed just fine—over cups of strong tea. After that she'd asked Lizzie a couple of questions, inspected my hands—not saying anything more than that about my magic reappearing—and shooed us all out to the garden.

"What's she looking for?" I asked Lizzie, who was watching Cassandra with a level of focus that made me think she was looking at the energy fields rather than Cassandra herself.

Which reminded me that now that I had my powers back, maybe I could see the energy fields, too. Or maybe I should just leave that to the experts.

"Trying to see what they used to set off the summoning," Lizzie said. She leaned forward, as though she wanted to see better, but didn’t move closer. "Whatever it was, it was clever. They've covered their tracks nicely."

Curiosity got the better of me. I reached for my magic, hoping it would respond. Then squinted, dazzled by the blaze of swirling blue around Damon. Cassandra and Lizzie glowed, too, but they were trained and knew how to hide their auras, so Lizzie’s pink and Cassandra’s green were much fainter. Damon had no power, but emotion was energy, too, and he was obviously agitated, the color spiking around him.

I pulled on what I remembered from Cassandra’s initial lessons and tried to block him out. I didn't completely succeed, but he receded to a dull glow, leaving me with an afterimage burned on my retinas as I blinked to clear my vision.

I couldn't see much that looked out of place in the garden among the faint hum of life that surrounded each of the plants and trees. The shed itself didn't glow, whatever it was made from magically inert.

Finally Cassandra straightened. "There's something faint here. But whoever set this was smart. The spell mostly burned itself up when Damon triggered it. There's not enough here to trace or look for any sort of signature."

"Where does that leave us?" Damon asked, blue surging brighter.

Cassandra moved away from the shed. "We have the footage of the imp—if that's what it was. That will be helpful."

"How?"

"Because there are some things that most humans wouldn't be able to summon," Lizzie said. "If it's one of those, then we're probably looking for a lesserkind."

Cassandra nodded. Neither of them looked happy at that thought.

"That's like an imp on steroids," I said to Damon.

"Not quite. More like a..." Cassandra wriggled her fingers. "A minor demon, perhaps. That's not quite right either. A lesserkind can never be as powerful as a demon, but they're descendants from the same branch of whatever hell-plane family tree demons come from." She looked at Damon. "We will ward the garden for you again," she said. "And Lizzie and I can make sure there aren't any other triggers lurking, but that's about all we can do until we get more information.

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