Read Online Magic in the Blood by Devon Monk - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Devon Monk
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the least.
But as I came closer to the wall, I realized why the glyphs looked so strange.
They were in the style of my dad’s signature. All of them. The Healing and positive glyphs and even the Death glyph were written in his hand. Written by him.
And just as my brain did a nice double somersault to try to wrap some logic around all this—that somehow my stern, corporate father had become a graffiti artist in his spare time four months ago when he was still alive—the glyphs were gone.
Gone. As in one blink they were there—pale water-colored lines of spells two stories tall, with no magic behind them—and the next blink, nothing but brick wall and rusted gutters.
Holy shit.
A chill dug nails under my skin as I realized there wasn’t even a hint of color on that wall. I am not stupid. Slow, sometimes, but not a complete idiot. Something really weird had just happened.
I scanned the empty lot, looked behind me at the sidewalk, the street, and the buildings beyond. A few people moved through the rain, but except for a steady stream of cars on the street, I was alone out here. I inhaled deeply, my mouth open, to try to smell if someone were near enough to cast magic—Illusion, maybe—to make me think I saw those glyphs.
Nothing but the stink of the city and the sour bite of my own sweat and fear.
I walked the rest of the way to the wall, smelling, tasting the air. The wall looked like an old brick wall of an old brick warehouse.
Nothing, the world around me seemed to be saying, had happened.
But I knew better.
I stopped close enough that I could touch the wall if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. Not yet.
Then I did something I do not love doing: I cast magic in public. Now that I carry magic in me, it takes a lot of concentration not to let it get out of hand. And I hate the idea of someone sneaking up on me while I’m in the middle of a spell. What if I lost control and hurt them? Casting magic also points me out to every other Hound in the city. To a Hound, cast magic is as clear as if the user ran around with a paintbrush and wrote: Allie Beckstrom was here at seven o’clock in the morning, freezing cold and freaked out, so she decided to cast a Sight spell.
Of course there was the whole angry ex-con thing that made me a little hesitant to put all my attention and concentration into casting a spell too.
But for this, to Hound my father’s signature, it was worth the risk. I whispered a mantra, just a little childhood jingle to settle my mind— Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black —and set a Disbursement for the price of using magic. A head cold—maybe a headache—would hit me in a couple hours. I was starting small, with a little spell to pull a little magic into my sight, so I could see glyphs my father had drawn on the wall, or see the jerk who thought throwing an Illusion in my face would be funny.
I traced the glyph of Sight in the air with the fingers of my right hand. A few months ago, I would have been very conscious of tapping into the stream of magic that pooled naturally beneath the city, or the stored magic held in the special network of heavily glyphed lead and glass conduits that ran beneath the sidewalks and in and over the buildings.
But now I had all the magic I needed inside me, constantly replenished from the stores beneath the city. I was a sponge and magic filled me.
Handy, that.
Magic flowed warm and thick down my neck, pouring like heated oil over the curve of my breast and down the length of my right arm to settle hot against my palm. I traced the final lines on the glyph for Sight and pushed magic out of my fingertips into the spell.
Like pulling a blindfold from my eyes, the world was suddenly too bright and too clear.
Vivid lines of color shot through the air, draped like lace shrouds over buildings, flickering at the corners of streets, clinging to people who moved in the distance. Magic was everywhere in the city. From spells for bad
But as I came closer to the wall, I realized why the glyphs looked so strange.
They were in the style of my dad’s signature. All of them. The Healing and positive glyphs and even the Death glyph were written in his hand. Written by him.
And just as my brain did a nice double somersault to try to wrap some logic around all this—that somehow my stern, corporate father had become a graffiti artist in his spare time four months ago when he was still alive—the glyphs were gone.
Gone. As in one blink they were there—pale water-colored lines of spells two stories tall, with no magic behind them—and the next blink, nothing but brick wall and rusted gutters.
Holy shit.
A chill dug nails under my skin as I realized there wasn’t even a hint of color on that wall. I am not stupid. Slow, sometimes, but not a complete idiot. Something really weird had just happened.
I scanned the empty lot, looked behind me at the sidewalk, the street, and the buildings beyond. A few people moved through the rain, but except for a steady stream of cars on the street, I was alone out here. I inhaled deeply, my mouth open, to try to smell if someone were near enough to cast magic—Illusion, maybe—to make me think I saw those glyphs.
Nothing but the stink of the city and the sour bite of my own sweat and fear.
I walked the rest of the way to the wall, smelling, tasting the air. The wall looked like an old brick wall of an old brick warehouse.
Nothing, the world around me seemed to be saying, had happened.
But I knew better.
I stopped close enough that I could touch the wall if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. Not yet.
Then I did something I do not love doing: I cast magic in public. Now that I carry magic in me, it takes a lot of concentration not to let it get out of hand. And I hate the idea of someone sneaking up on me while I’m in the middle of a spell. What if I lost control and hurt them? Casting magic also points me out to every other Hound in the city. To a Hound, cast magic is as clear as if the user ran around with a paintbrush and wrote: Allie Beckstrom was here at seven o’clock in the morning, freezing cold and freaked out, so she decided to cast a Sight spell.
Of course there was the whole angry ex-con thing that made me a little hesitant to put all my attention and concentration into casting a spell too.
But for this, to Hound my father’s signature, it was worth the risk. I whispered a mantra, just a little childhood jingle to settle my mind— Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black —and set a Disbursement for the price of using magic. A head cold—maybe a headache—would hit me in a couple hours. I was starting small, with a little spell to pull a little magic into my sight, so I could see glyphs my father had drawn on the wall, or see the jerk who thought throwing an Illusion in my face would be funny.
I traced the glyph of Sight in the air with the fingers of my right hand. A few months ago, I would have been very conscious of tapping into the stream of magic that pooled naturally beneath the city, or the stored magic held in the special network of heavily glyphed lead and glass conduits that ran beneath the sidewalks and in and over the buildings.
But now I had all the magic I needed inside me, constantly replenished from the stores beneath the city. I was a sponge and magic filled me.
Handy, that.
Magic flowed warm and thick down my neck, pouring like heated oil over the curve of my breast and down the length of my right arm to settle hot against my palm. I traced the final lines on the glyph for Sight and pushed magic out of my fingertips into the spell.
Like pulling a blindfold from my eyes, the world was suddenly too bright and too clear.
Vivid lines of color shot through the air, draped like lace shrouds over buildings, flickering at the corners of streets, clinging to people who moved in the distance. Magic was everywhere in the city. From spells for bad
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