Read Online Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns by authors_sort - Free Book Online

exactly.”
    â€œYou hear that whooming? The Honeycomb changes all the time so they have to have some sort of beacon. It’s probably at the entrance, which should be guarded by somebody. We’re going to go there and ask nicely where Esmeralda lived.”
    â€œWhat makes you think they’ll tell us?”
    â€œBecause I’ll pay them.”
    â€œOh.”
    And because if they don’t tell me, I will pull out my Order ID and my saber and make myself very hard to ignore.
    I wasn’t wild about heading into the Honeycomb with a little girl in tow, but considering the neighborhood, she was safer with me than without me. I wondered how she got down there in the first place…
    â€œHow did you get down into the Gap?”
    â€œWe hiked from the Warren. There’s a trail.” A little light went off in her eyes. “But I probably can’t find it now. So if you send me back, I’ll just wander around without any water or food.”
    Why me?
    The street turned slightly, bringing us into view of wide-open chain-link gates. Just in front of them a man in faded jeans and a leather vest worn over his bare chest sat on an overturned oil drum. An unlit cigarette drooped from his lips. To the left of him sat an old military truck, its back end pointing toward the gate. Despite rust stains and dents, the truck’s tires and canvas top looked to be in good condition. The canvas probably hid some heavy-duty hardware, a Gatling gun or a small siege engine.
    On the other side of the man sat a huge rectangular tank. Soft emerald-green algae stained the glass walls, obscuring the murky water within. A long section of metal pipe stretched from the tank and disappeared beneath the twisted remains of a trailer.
    The man on the drum leveled a crossbow at me. The crossbow looked a lot like a good old-fashioned, flat-sided Flemish arbalest. The prong gleamed with the bluish-gray shade particular to steel, not the brighter, pale aluminum of cheaper bows, meaning the bow’s draw weight probably ranged to two hundred pounds. He could put a bolt into me from seventy-five yards away and he wanted me to know that.
    Whoom. Whoom.
    An arbalest was a decent weapon, but slow on reload.
    The man eyed me. “You want something?” The cigarette remained stuck to his lower lip, moving as he spoke.
    â€œI’m an agent of the Order investigating the disappearance of witches belonging to the Sisters of the Crow coven. I was told the head witch lived in the Honeycomb.”
    â€œAnd who is that?” He pointed to Julie behind me.
    â€œDaughter of a witch in Esmeralda’s coven. Her mom’s missing. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
    â€œNo. You got an ID on you?”
    I reached for the leather wallet I carried on a cord around my neck and took out my Order ID. He motioned me closer. I approached and passed it to him. He turned it over. The small rectangle of silver in the lower right corner of the card gleamed, catching a stray ray of the sun.
    â€œIs that real silver?” he asked. The cigarette drew an elaborate pattern in the air.
    â€œYes.” Silver took enchantment better than most metals.
    The man gave me a quick glance and rubbed at the silver through the clear plastic coating. “How much is it worth?”
    Here we go. “You’re asking the wrong question.”
    â€œOh yeah?”
    â€œYou should be asking if your life is worth a square inch of enchanted silver.”
    He gave the card another cursory glance. “You talk big.”
    I snapped my hand at his face. He shied back and I handed his cigarette back to him. “These things can kill you.”
    He stuck the cigarette back into his mouth and returned my ID. “Name’s Custer.”
    â€œKate Daniels.”
    The canvas shielding the truck shifted, revealing a lean Latino woman next to a black cheiroballista. Built like a giant crossbow, the cheiroballista