Oblivion Heart (Darkling Mage 4)

Chapter 3

“They burned the warehouse down,” I said.

“Holy crap, man,” Asher said. “What the hell.”

I pointed at him. “Yeah, hell. That’s exactly what it looked like. Glad you guys got out of there when you did, or the Lorica would’ve wanted to question you, too.”

Asher shrugged. “We had to get out. Sterling was getting all weird.”

Sterling shook his head. “It wasn’t the hunger, either. It was fucked up, seeing everyone bleed like that. None of it was appetizing. Made me sick. And the light was hurting me. Did any of you feel that? I just couldn’t stay. Something was seriously wrong.”

That was the last thing I’d expected Sterling to say. I guess that even apex predators had their limits.

“I didn’t feel anything,” I said. Asher shook his head, too.

“The question is,” asked our other apex predator, “how the hell did you guys survive?” Gil Ramirez scratched at his beard, looking at the three of us with one thick, cocked eyebrow. Our werewolf was surprisingly mild-mannered, and was pretty sharp and inquisitive – at least, when he wasn’t going full dog.

We were in our hideout, an otherworldly space accessible only through a brick wall in the kitchen of a Filipino restaurant. By stepping through a portal, in the blink of an eye, you go from grubby linoleum and peeling paint to a dark, expansive stone temple that’s about as quiet and cheery as a tomb. That, among other reasons, was why Asher had decided to christen our home the Boneyard. It felt correct, and to be honest, a little cool.

Carver, our employer, mentor, landlord – the guy was a lot of things – stroked his own perfectly manicured beard, his brow furrowed. As a lich, an undying sorcerer, Carver had spent countless decades, maybe centuries honing both his magical talents and his enormous intellect.

But it looked as if this dilemma had stumped him, too. I didn’t like knowing that the man who’d taken me in, who had taught me how to control the wildness of the Dark Room’s shadows and the ferocity that lay dormant in my own heart, didn’t have the answers.

“Dustin,” he said, and we fell silent, all heads turning to look in his direction. “Are you certain that the four of you, the singer included, were the only survivors?”

“Pretty sure,” I said. “I mean there’s a chance I might have missed a couple of people. I was kind of focused on Mona. Somehow I thought I could do something to stop her, but I was too late.”

I tried not to look so disappointed at that. If there was one thing I’d learned about dealing with magic, it’s that you can’t always save everyone. The world of the arcane is chaotic, sprawling, and often immensely dangerous. But over a hundred dead? Holy shit.

The leather sofa squeaked as Asher scrambled to sit up. “Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure we saw a couple of other people run out of the warehouse when Sterling and I did.” He scratched his chin, like he was trying to imitate Gil and Carver, except that he had no beard to stroke. “Come to think of it, one of them just vanished into thin air.”

“Could be the perpetrator,” Gil said grimly.

“Or,” Carver said, “the spell the songstress unleashed might have been designed specifically to target the normals. It seems to me that all the supernaturals present at the performance were spared.”

Now that definitely got us all quiet. We glanced nervously at each other, and the anxiety began to bubble up so harshly in my throat that I took a noisy, horrible slurp of my coffee, just to break the silence.

“Then that’s way, way worse than what we expected,” Gil muttered. “Why not just nuke Valero while they’re at it? There’s a reason they’re leaving magical people alive.”

I took another sip, grimaced, then asked. “Has Prudence said anything?” Prudence was one of the Lorica’s most powerful Hands, and someone I considered a friend. She was also, incidentally, dating Gil, which made him the right person to ask.

Gil shook his head. “I mean, obviously I’ll tell you guys if I hear anything from her, but you know how she is. Professional to a fault, and sure, we’re informal allies in a sense, but the Lorica likes to keep it in the family.”

Sterling grunted. “We’ll hear one way or another. Both of you guys are dating people in the Lorica, anyhow.”

I chuckled and raised an eyebrow. “What? Are you talking about me? Who am I dating?”

Sterling waved his hand, rotating it at the wrist as he checked his mental ledgers for the right person. “What’s his name. Japanese guy. Herald, was it?”

Herald Igarashi was another staffer from the Lorica, probably one of my closest friends in Valero. I blinked, then sputtered, confused. I sipped my coffee again, hoping the oversized mug would hide some of the blushing.

“Can we just get back to business?” I cleared my throat, my ears still burning. “Seriously.”

“There isn’t much business to get back to,” Carver said. “Without further information, there’s no telling what truly happened tonight. The best we can go on is that Sterling’s songstress unknowingly recited a spell, delivering it in the form of a song.” He cupped his chin again, raising an eyebrow. “You did say she seemed surprised by the song’s effect, did you not?”

“Definitely,” I said. “She was crying. It was almost like she’d broken out of a trance, like she didn’t know what she was doing.”

“Mind control,” Asher suggested.