Shadow Magic (Darkling Mage 1)

And bumped straight into the missing man. I gasped at the sight of him, at the odd pallor of his skin, the marble smoothness of his cheeks. I raised my hands, I don’t know, I guess to show that I didn’t mean him harm, and in some hope that he wouldn’t harm me in return. He mirrored my pose with a chuckle, a low, musical sound, his eyes black and twinkling.

“Whoa there,” he said. “Didn’t mean to bump into you,” he continued, with the exact tone of someone who meant to do just that.

“What do you want?” I demanded, glancing over my shoulder again, preparing to shadowstep, just as I caught sight of the taller man closing in on us.

“Just to talk. Stay a while, Dustin.”

I froze. The man knew my name. These people had their sources, the way the Lorica had its Eyes. Someone was watching. Always watching.

The man grinned, his smile splitting his face and revealing a pair of sharp, unnaturally long canines.

“The night is young,” he said, in a voice that was at once husky, and hungry. “Let’s get to know each other.”

Chapter 8

Somehow the pale man had pushed me up against the wall without even touching me. He had this way of invading, no, bypassing my personal space. It was a creeping sort of presence that latched on and mesmerized me, long enough at least that the taller man had time to join our huddle.

“Look, Gil,” the pale man said. “Look what I found. He was gonna run away. He’s one of those – what does the Lorica call them again.” He cocked an eyebrow, then bent in, smiling. “Hounds?”

My heart pounded. Whoever these people were, they knew about the Veil, which narrowed things down in a bad way. My hunch must have been correct. These assholes worked for the Black Hand.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t say anything without incriminating myself. The taller man – Gil – grunted anyway. He stepped closer, looming over the two of us, and I pressed further against the wall, as if there was anywhere else to go. This man was powerfully built, dark and swarthy, with thick eyebrows and a beard that only pronounced his menace. Yet when he spoke, the steady calm of his voice surprised me.

“Get it over with. Just beat what you need out of him and we can get out of here.”

“Aww, Gil, you’re no fun. Stray little puppy’s out on his own when he shouldn’t be.” The pale man hooked a finger under my necklace, tugging on it lightly the way Bastion would, and it sent ice down my spine, this awful mix of indignation and fear. His hand made contact with my neck as he toyed with the leather thong. His fingers were cold, and I knew it wasn’t only because of the night air.

“I don’t know nothing about no Lorica,” I blurted out, too eager to save my own skin. It was the best thing I could think to say, and besides, it bought me time to study my options.

The pale man drew his face back, then grinned again. In the moonlight, his fangs gleamed. “Our new friend is a bit of a liar, Gil.”

The man called Gil rolled his eyes and grunted again. “You do this all the time. Stop playing with your food and get on with it.”

“Your what?” Did he just call me food?

“Don’t scare him, Gil.” The fingers stopped playing with my necklace, then moved on to press lightly against my skin. “That’s not what we’re here for. Although now that you mention it, I wouldn’t mind a little snack.” He bent in, inhaled sharply, and grinned again. “He’s so hot, too.”

I cringed at his touch, still unsure of what to do, and somehow my brain turned to humor to defuse the situation. “Thanks,” I said, my nails digging into the wall behind me. “I try.”

The pale man laughed. “Oh, and cocky. I like this one.” His fingers pushed deeper against my skin, the edges of his nails digging. “I meant your blood.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Fuck this.”

I brought my knee up against the pale man’s crotch, as hard and abruptly as I could. As far as I was concerned there was no shame in taking every advantage I could find in a fight, not if it meant saving myself from a hypothetical vampire.

The breath rushed out of him in a rough gasp and he doubled over long enough to let go of me, and far back enough to cast a shadow on the ground. I stepped into it, more thrilled than I had ever been to walk into the gloom of the Dark Room, and emerged several feet away.

Gil looked around wildly, roared, then shoved the other man hard in the chest. “I fucking told you, didn’t I?”

The vampire stumbled, but only just. “Gil,” he choked out

, between gasps of pain and stilted chuckles. “Did you see that? He wants to make this a game. A chase it is then.”

“Not this shit again,” Gil said. “Get your balls back together and come on.”

I ran. It hardly mattered which direction I was heading at this point, only that I pushed into the darkest places I could possibly lead these psychos to. Funny how that worked, how that sort of reckless behavior was what got me killed in the first place, but it was exactly what I needed to save me this time around. I headed for the place where I was abducted before my murder. I made a beeline for Heinsite Park.

Footsteps stamped the pavement behind me. I didn’t dare turn to check how far away the two were, only focusing on looking straight ahead and making a mad dash for the darkness. It was that time of night when there weren’t a lot of people around, too, but what few there were either avoided my gaze entirely or stared pointedly. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of there unscathed, with all my blood right where it belonged: inside of my body.