Read Online Ink Magic (Ink Sorceress Chronicles) by Erika Gilbert - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Erika Gilbert
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their features in the dark, but they definitely looked male. They managed to recover before falling off the roof. Then they just . . . disappeared out of thin air.
I hadn’t seen Daniel perform that particular trick. Oh, he could jump really high and move faster than human speed, but he’d never actually blinked out of existence.
Also, my pursuer didn’t sound as light on his feet as Daniel. In fact he crashed across the roofs like an elephant.
So why couldn’t I see him?
Everything went quiet above. I had no idea where he was.
Someone grabbed me from behind, and put me in a choker hold. I struggled to escape their grip but they held me firm and the more I struggled, the less I could breathe. The worst thing was not being able to see their face. I only felt their breath on my neck.
Sure they’d kill me without ever showing their face, I panicked and stamped down hard where I thought their foot was. I heard a painful crunch as my foot crushed bone. He let me go.
Spinning to face them, I saw . . . nothing.
But something felt wrong. I knew I wasn’t alone. I thought I almost heard something and strained to listen. Yes! There it was. The sound of him breathing in front of me. But I couldn’t see him.
He was invisible.
“ What do you want?” I asked.
My question went unanswered for a long time. When he did speak it came from a different direction than I anticipated. “I’ve come to teach you how to master your powers.”
I whipped around to face the direction the voice came in and saw nothing.
“ Why don’t you show yourself?” He couldn’t possibly fear me. My powers were hiding again.
“ I’m willing to teach you how to control your powers.” His voice came from a different direction. “The Ink Mages can’t help you. Only another Ink Sorcerer can do that.”
“ Markus Bint?”
“ Yes,” he said, standing in front of me now, and still invisible.
I wondered if he was playing with me, teasing me, by moving around so much. He didn’t threaten me. Yet. But the fact he could come at me from any angle without me seeing was a threat in itself. He wanted to display his power. And he wanted me afraid.
“ What do you get out of helping me?”
“ An ally.” His voice was right in my ear.
“ I’ve seen how you treat your allies.” Having my mind taken over and being forced to kill didn’t seem like an equal partnership to me.
“ Don’t you want to see how powerful you can be?”
No. I didn’t want my powers. I wanted to be an ordinary teenager whose biggest concerns were midterms. “Can you control your powers? Do you know how to stop them?”
“ Stop them?” He sounded like he’d never entertained the idea.
“ Yes. Just make them go away completely.”
“ You don’t want any powers?” He said it like I’d suggesting eating puppies.
“ No. I just want to be normal?”
“ Normal?” For an instant he was visible, standing to my side, his face twisted in anger. “You think having powers far greater than any living being is some kind of abnormality?”
It was when I started to sprout hairs in the middle of a room full of my friends, or when I grew massive, sharp teeth. “I don’t like being different from everyone else. I just want to be human.”
“ Humans are weak. They’re afraid of us. They would want to use us,” he said, totally unaware of the irony.
“ Well, humans are my friends. My family....”
“ Would kill you if they knew what you could turn into.”
That was my point exactly. I didn’t want to be a threat. I didn’t want to force the people I loved into having to defend themselves against me.
“ There must be some kind of a . . . cure for this.”
“ A cure! You’re not ill.” He flickered back into visibility then. Anger made his powers fluctuate, I realized. He wasn’t as in control as he thought.
I knew him. I was sure of it. That face. So familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on how.
“ You’ve been brainwashed,” he continued.
I hadn’t seen Daniel perform that particular trick. Oh, he could jump really high and move faster than human speed, but he’d never actually blinked out of existence.
Also, my pursuer didn’t sound as light on his feet as Daniel. In fact he crashed across the roofs like an elephant.
So why couldn’t I see him?
Everything went quiet above. I had no idea where he was.
Someone grabbed me from behind, and put me in a choker hold. I struggled to escape their grip but they held me firm and the more I struggled, the less I could breathe. The worst thing was not being able to see their face. I only felt their breath on my neck.
Sure they’d kill me without ever showing their face, I panicked and stamped down hard where I thought their foot was. I heard a painful crunch as my foot crushed bone. He let me go.
Spinning to face them, I saw . . . nothing.
But something felt wrong. I knew I wasn’t alone. I thought I almost heard something and strained to listen. Yes! There it was. The sound of him breathing in front of me. But I couldn’t see him.
He was invisible.
“ What do you want?” I asked.
My question went unanswered for a long time. When he did speak it came from a different direction than I anticipated. “I’ve come to teach you how to master your powers.”
I whipped around to face the direction the voice came in and saw nothing.
“ Why don’t you show yourself?” He couldn’t possibly fear me. My powers were hiding again.
“ I’m willing to teach you how to control your powers.” His voice came from a different direction. “The Ink Mages can’t help you. Only another Ink Sorcerer can do that.”
“ Markus Bint?”
“ Yes,” he said, standing in front of me now, and still invisible.
I wondered if he was playing with me, teasing me, by moving around so much. He didn’t threaten me. Yet. But the fact he could come at me from any angle without me seeing was a threat in itself. He wanted to display his power. And he wanted me afraid.
“ What do you get out of helping me?”
“ An ally.” His voice was right in my ear.
“ I’ve seen how you treat your allies.” Having my mind taken over and being forced to kill didn’t seem like an equal partnership to me.
“ Don’t you want to see how powerful you can be?”
No. I didn’t want my powers. I wanted to be an ordinary teenager whose biggest concerns were midterms. “Can you control your powers? Do you know how to stop them?”
“ Stop them?” He sounded like he’d never entertained the idea.
“ Yes. Just make them go away completely.”
“ You don’t want any powers?” He said it like I’d suggesting eating puppies.
“ No. I just want to be normal?”
“ Normal?” For an instant he was visible, standing to my side, his face twisted in anger. “You think having powers far greater than any living being is some kind of abnormality?”
It was when I started to sprout hairs in the middle of a room full of my friends, or when I grew massive, sharp teeth. “I don’t like being different from everyone else. I just want to be human.”
“ Humans are weak. They’re afraid of us. They would want to use us,” he said, totally unaware of the irony.
“ Well, humans are my friends. My family....”
“ Would kill you if they knew what you could turn into.”
That was my point exactly. I didn’t want to be a threat. I didn’t want to force the people I loved into having to defend themselves against me.
“ There must be some kind of a . . . cure for this.”
“ A cure! You’re not ill.” He flickered back into visibility then. Anger made his powers fluctuate, I realized. He wasn’t as in control as he thought.
I knew him. I was sure of it. That face. So familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on how.
“ You’ve been brainwashed,” he continued.
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