Chapter 1 #2
“You’re not going anywhere,” Imani says, beaming at me through the window like she’s gotten her smiling inspiration from horror movies.
I close my eyes and feign unconsciousness.
“You’re not dead, get your ass out here,” Imani demands as she tries the door, but I’d made sure to melt the metal together on my way in.
“Why’d you touch him?” Imani asks Vinny, knowing that what I just accomplished was because of him.
My magic works by replicating magic abilities from those I physically contact. And because Vinny can manipulate metal, the instant he touched me and I felt that magic spark in my arms, I could too.
As simple as that… okay, maybe it’s not simple at all, but it sure makes my life easier to be able to borrow whatever magic I need for the moment.
“Because I missed him,” Vinny mutters. “I can undo it.”
As soon as Vinny starts fixing the door by holding his hand over it, I swiftly fuck it up again, pleased with my ability to be a stubborn asshole because even though Vinny is quite talented with his ability to manipulate metal, the second I “borrowed” the power, I became significantly better at it.
Honestly, being a stubborn asshole is a talent of mine.
“Riley, we really do need your help,” Imani says, switching gears to see if pleading works better.
“Find someone else. I’ve retired.”
“You’re thirty-six. You can’t retire at thirty-six. And you’re too talented to have such a normal and boring job as a librarian.”
“Ms. Percy told me I’m the best helper she’s ever had. She also told me I’m cute,” I say. “We might even get married.”
“Isn’t that the lady who’s been there for like sixty-five years? There’s no way you’re the best she’s seen.”
“Sixty-nine. It’s fate.”
Vinny finally gets the door open, and Imani reaches in and grabs Kit while I watch her. Then off she goes with my familiar who is looking back at me from where she’s perched on Imani’s shoulder.
A growl escapes me as I realize that she plans to use Kit against me, and I have little choice but to follow her. Kit has no idea she’s been kidnapped. She’s just thrilled to see Imani and prepared to leave me behind.
I follow Imani and Vinny into the building.
“What do you want me for?” I ask, caving slightly.
“It’s nothing huge, I promise. We merely need you to speak to a man.”
“I hate speaking to people. I actually just hate people, I think. I like how I can shush people in the library. It makes me feel warm and tingly inside.”
It almost feels like Imani doesn’t hear me since she keeps talking about things that don’t seem to have anything to do with what I was saying.
“He speaks a language that’s not recognizable and refuses to engage with our translator…
though she did scream when he reached for her and then told us that he claimed that he would consume her soul if she screamed like that again. We are… unsure how serious he is.”
“So you want my soul to be consumed?” I ask.
Imani doesn’t look impressed as Kit gazes up at her. “I forgot how difficult you are to work with.”
“I’m going to do my best to remind you,” I assure her.
“Oh, I’m sure you will,” she mutters as I walk through the facility and am guided over to a door.
Not just any door, but an extremely secure door that is generally used to hide the most dangerous of criminals. And she’s over here like, “Here, head on in. Have a jolly chat.”
Imani seems to notice my look because she smiles. “It’ll be fine. We believe he’s harmless. We just… we found him unconscious and brought him in, unsure of who… or what he is exactly.”
“I love meeting things that are ‘whats,’” I murmur.
“Excellent, then you’re going to love meeting him,” she says before a terrified woman is pushed toward me.
Imani takes the woman’s hand and smacks it against mine in the most forced high five.
I almost feel like I’ve abused the woman by the way she recoils as I feel magic rush up my arms, much like it had when Vinny touched me.
It means that the magic I’d borrowed from Vinny, which allowed me to manipulate metal, has been replaced with magic that allows me to understand languages I’ve never learned.
My magic revolves around the fact that I can “borrow” magic from others, which is simply done by touching them.
This can be a curse or a blessing… depending on whether or not I want to borrow that person’s magic.
I don’t get a choice, so the moment I touch the woman, I can feel her magic wash through my body, allowing me to claim it and use it as if it’s a magic I was born with and learned how to harness.
It never affects the person when I borrow their magic; I’ve been told that there’s no sign that anything has changed for them.
If the person is a necromancer, I can suddenly raise the dead.
An elemental mage? I can now harness the wind.
But the instant I touch another person, my previous ability disappears and I’m left with the magic of whoever touched me last, which has been my downfall in a few fights when someone with poor magical ability has bumped into me.
“So what do you want from this person?” I ask Imani as the woman flees, pleased to have found someone else that Imani is willing to sacrifice.
“His name, where he came from, and who he is.”
“So like a dating profile,” Vinny unhelpfully adds.
I sigh and pull the door open, well aware that the sooner I do this, the better.
Unless… after I do this, she thinks I’m willing to do other things.
“I forgot I have an appointment in twenty,” I say, but Imani is having none of it as Kit leaps from her shoulder to mine.
When I peek into the room and see what’s waiting for me—eating a bit of Kit’s fur since she nosily puts her face in front of mine—I pat Imani’s shoulder.
“I… I fear I’ll have to do this alone.” And I shut the door before she can see inside.
Then I hurry over to a chair which I’m prepared to sit in until they let me go free because whoever they were holding in this room is long gone.
I kick my feet up and pull out my phone to play a game while I wait.
Kit likes to watch the ones with a lot of colorful boxes moving around the most, so I click one.
For a while, she only wanted me to play the games that are made for cats and would often commandeer my phone to smack the little fish floating across the screen.
Imani jerks the door open, looks around, and scowls. “Where did he go? The door was shut… shit. Riley, give us a hand, would you?”
See?
Help her once… and now I’m in for the long haul.
With a sigh, I step out and head in a random direction, intending to find my way to the subway station, which isn’t far from here. I will hop on, ride home, and order my pizza.
“I’ll get chicken on it,” I promise Kit. She makes a happy noise about that.
I push open the door to the outside only to find myself flying through the air, having been hanging on to the door too tightly when someone decided ripping it off its hinges would be ideal.
A massive man cocks his head as he looks down at me.
I’m not a short man at five ten, but this man is at least six seven.
He’s extremely muscular, which is shown by the way his clothes appear to have been stitched onto him, allowing me to see every dip of muscle under his tanned skin.
But it’s paired with a cloak and some kind of wrap that looks out of place.
His dark hair falls to just below his ears and scruff covers his face.
He grabs my wrist, and I find it fascinating that there’s no zap of magic rushing up my arms when he does so since this man reeks of “magical being.” It’s definitely not interesting enough to willingly go with this strange man as he grabs a console table that held some paperwork (which is now all over the floor) and begins hauling me out to the stretch of land behind the department.
I kind of feel like any man who can carry a table like that could throw me a significant distance and decide not to fight him too much.
“I really only needed mozzarella! If I hadn’t needed that cheese, I’d be curled up with a good book right now,” I grumble.
The man doesn’t slow or acknowledge that I’m talking, even though the magic I’d borrowed from the terrified translator should make it so he can understand me.
“What if… I pretend I didn’t see you, and I head home so you can continue on your way?”
That’s when this odd feeling starts seeping inside me.
It makes me hesitate as I realize that whatever we’re heading toward is not good.
I decide to put on the brakes, which means that I am dragged after the man like a rag doll.
So here I am, feet skidding, man pulling me by my arm like I weigh nothing while he hauls a long decorative table over his shoulder as though it weighs five pounds.
I can feel the creature before I see it. It’s standing in the middle of a field, darkness rippling over its flesh almost like it’s oozing off it. It looks like a large hellhound, standing about as tall as a car and ready to eat anything it can get its paws on.
Noticing us, its shoulders hunch and it snarls, showing off fangs as long as my hands. And from the way it’s acting, it doesn’t seem like it overly enjoys people.
The man finally stops dragging me and sets me on my feet. Then he hands me the table and pats me on the head. I nearly drop the table, surprised by the weight of the heavy wood before I question why I’m even trying to hang on to the stupid thing and do drop it.
“Go on, peasant, your sacrifice will be remembered,” the man says as he pushes me toward the thing. I realize that whatever he’s speaking is a language I don’t immediately recognize the sound of, yet I can understand everything he’s saying.
And when I begin speaking, I find it easy to reply in his tongue. “Why the hell should I be the sacrifice? You be the sacrifice!” I snap. Truly, this woman’s magic is quite interesting. How can I understand and speak something I don’t know at all?
He laughs as he looks over at me, like what I’ve said is far more entertaining than the fact that our death is nigh. I’m out here with the fucking magical ability to talk to this asshole. Like how many creatures am I going to take down with the ability of speech?
“Dammit,” I snarl.
My speech didn’t go well.
The creature lunges toward us, and I dodge out of its path at the very last minute. I shove the table toward it just as the creature slams into the marble top, sending me flying before I slam down onto my back, but I use the momentum to roll up onto my feet.
“You’re doing better than I imagined,” the man says as he gives me a little clap from the sidelines.
The creature freezes when it hears the noise and must decide that it hates praise because it whips around and starts stalking toward him.
That wipes the smile right off the man’s handsome face. “No, no, now. I brought you a champion of the highest caliber to sate your bloodlust,” he declares.
“Did you? Did you?” I hiss. “You snatched up the first person you saw and flung me at the monster!”
“It is a peasant’s duty to fight for their god.”
“Ah, right. ‘My precious god,’ I will pray to you to save my ass,” I say, turning around and running toward the building while I struggle to pull out the pendant that’s on a chain around my neck. “We should have stayed home today, Kit.”
Kit agrees.
Something is batted at me, and I narrowly dodge it by falling right on my face. Kit is thrown off my shoulder and rolls a significant distance from me.
The world seems to shutter around me as I try to catch my bearings.
This is not ideal. This is not ideal at all.
I suddenly see the creature coming from directly behind me, and I try to twist, but I’m disoriented which gives the creature time to slam into me, driving me to the ground.
Swiftly, I jerk my pendant out and press my thumb against the third notch before I feel magic rush through my whole body. Just as I lift my hand, the monster’s head hits my chest then rolls off me.
Kit scurries onto the scene while the man dusts his hands off and looks down at me before grimacing, likely because it looks like I’ve just been dunked in a blood bath or like I’ve just been to the prom in Stephen King’s Carrie.
“If you could do that the whole time, why did you throw me out first?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Details are for the weak,” he decides.
“What does that mean?” I snap. “I just wanted mozzarella. Mozzarella!”
He cocks his head. “This lust you have for your lover Mozzarella is really something beautiful. I hope I can love someone as much as you love Mozzarella someday.”
I just stand up, fully prepared to walk to the subway station looking like the main character in a horror movie. Who am I kidding; I was the side character that got offed in the second act.
Of course, now Imani and Vinny and half the department come jogging out. Now that we’ve nearly been murdered, consumed, and shit out by a giant beast.