Read Online Vicious Grace by M. L. N. Hanover - Free Book Online

The elderly woman and the girl stared at us nervously.
    “Insurance problem,” I said, my voice whiskey-rough. “No big deal.”
    The old woman nodded and smiled like I’d made any sense at all. My knuckles ached where I’d skinned them on something. On someone. When Kim spoke, she sounded as calm and businesslike as ever.
    “We need to get to the others,” she said. I nodded. If we were in danger, they were too. We had to get them out. I willed the car to go down faster. The numbers kept moving at the same, deliberate speed.
    “I take it this hasn’t happened before,” I said.
    She didn’t dignify me with an answer.
    It took us ten minutes to find someplace in the hospital with cell reception, but we got through to Aubrey and Ex on our first calls, and after that, it was like a fire drill. No running. No questions. We all walked quickly and deliberately out of the buildings, to the street, and away. In the full light of the sun, I felt the first tremors of my coming adrenaline crash. Mentally, I felt fine. Emotionally, I had no problems. It was just that my hands were shaking and I was a little nauseated. It would get worse before it got better, and I’d do my level best to ignore it then too.
    As we walked, I brought the others up to speed. What had happened, how we’d dealt with it. We’d covered three long city blocks before I could bring myself to stop at a sidewalk café and sit for a while. It was Greek food, and the blue-and-white sign promised real Greek coffee. We took a wide, steel-mesh table set back in a patio of cracking cement that might have been a basketball court, once upon a time. The fading blue umbrella stood in the center of it like the mast of a sailboat, but it was thin enough that we could all still see one another. When Kim sat and started rubbing her feet, I remembered that she’d ditched her shoes. Three city blocks was a long way for bare feet on concrete. If she’d said something, I would have stopped sooner.
    “It wasn’t possession,” Ex said after a thin, olive-skinned boy who looked about thirteen took our orders. “If they’d had riders, Jayné wouldn’t have been able to snap Kim out of it with an improvised cantrip.”
    “So magic, then,” I said. “Someone with a rider who could throw some kind of mass mind-control mojo? And who knew we were there?”
    They were all silent for a moment.
    “There’s some holes in that,” Aubrey said.
    “Like?” I asked. It came across sharper than I’d meant it to, but he didn’t take offense.
    “Well, for instance, how did he know you were there? Eric’s wards are supposed to keep you from being found, right?”
    “What if he wasn’t using magic to find me?” I said. “It’s not like you can’t take a picture of me. Or see me if you look across the room. The villagers didn’t pull out their pitchforks and come after you guys. Kim’s been there for years without anything taking a swing at her. I have to think he was after me specifically.”
    Kim shook her head.
    “That doesn’t scan either,” she said. “If someone’s using mundane strategies to find you, why use some kind of proxy magic to attack you? Why not just shoot you? And for that matter, why shoot you in the first place? Unless that was supposed to be some kind of warning.”
    “Maybe it was reacting to Eric’s wards and protections,” Aubrey said. “You know. Watching for someone with the most armor and figuring they’re the one that poses the biggest threat?”
    “Or an autoimmune response,” Kim said. “Magic that saw other magic as not-self?”
    “There’s a comforting thought,” I said.
    Chogyi Jake leaned forward in his chair. His fingers laced his knee, and when he spoke, his voice was thoughtful.
    “We’re missing something. What did it feel like?” he asked. I was on the edge of telling him it felt like being the soccer ball at the World Cup when I realized he wasn’t talking to me. Kim brushed back her hair with one