Ravenous Prophecy

Chapter 1

GRIFFIN

The frigid air conditioning of the interview room blew like icy breath against my back. Magical agents and their stupid forms. Not the first time I’d been thrown in one of these rooms for messing up some paperwork, all because of an artifact.

How long had I been waiting? I glared at my arm as if I could make my wristwatch appear through sheer willpower, but the agents had been surprisingly thorough this time.

Not that they needed to be. The innocuous-looking wooden door was set with a frosted glass pane whose etched patterns ensured that nothing magical within the confines of an interview room could function.

But there wasn’t anything enchanted about my watch, and it would have been nice to know how long I’d been detained for making one tiny mistake.

What would my peers say if they heard? Griffin Gallows, a relic hunter in his prime, brought low by the bureaucratic clutches of the Magical Enforcement Agency.

I couldn’t make my own magic by any means and had no real talent for spellcasting, so I had to be resourceful and turn to magical tools.

But anyone who had even a little experience with magic could feel the hum of the arcane emanating from the damn artifact all the same.

And now MEA had accosted me and tossed me in a box—an interrogation chamber, let’s face facts—all over a measly set of brass knuckles. Which would be very useful once they were returned to me.

“If they give them back,” I muttered, softly so my voice wouldn’t carry, mostly talking to myself as I shifted uncomfortably in the metal folding chair. “Fucking MEA.”

The Magical Enforcement Agency. MEA for short. It stood for methodical efficient assholes, if you asked me, and that was me being complimentary. Sure, they did a fine enough job of tracking potential magical misdeeds, but I couldn’t help feeling targeted every time I passed through Moraira City.

“My bad. So sorry for tossing you in a box, Mr. Gallows,” I grumbled to myself.

Any minute now. Any minute, one of those MEA chumps would walk up to that tiny window, deactivate the field, then let me out. Maybe it would even be Nicoletta herself, and we could chit-chat merrily, like the good old friends we pretended we were.

Footsteps approached from down the hallway. I allowed myself a tiny smirk. Sometimes I wondered whether I did have latent magical abilities, even after tying my tongue in knots trying to recite the simplest of incantations.

But then I heard a second set of footsteps, scrabbling and stumbling alongside the steadier ones that I assumed belonged to the MEA agent. Whoever it was, they were clearly panicking.

On the other side of the tiny, frosted glass window, a man stood with his hands behind his back while the agent silently mouthed an incantation and gestured at the door.

Deactivating the wards, most likely. If I timed it correctly, and if I really wanted to be a hero, I could bust right out as soon as he swung the door open to let the other guy in.

And swing open it did. But I wasn’t a hero, and I wasn’t in any mood to get blasted with a spell to the face. Live to die another day, and so on. The frightened man seemed to think differently.

“You’re making a mistake.” His eyes flashed with panic, sweat on his forehead. “I’m telling you, I don’t belong here,” he begged as the agent ushered him into the room. “Please, you don’t understand.”

The man wilted as the agent blocked the doorway and smiled. I shuddered. These people were so creepy, grinning in their severe gray suits, their blazer-and-skirt combos.

“This won’t take long,” the suit said, his voice musical yet hollow all at once. “I do apologize for the inconvenience.”

Hah. Like he was sorry at all. But I knew when to fight back just as well as I knew when to keep my mouth shut.

My gaze fell on the holster at his hip, at the handcuffs with the dull gleam of iron, the baton engraved with runes to make it as effective as a medieval mace.

I had my standard complement of gear that I used in my line of work, and these guys had theirs.

Like their handguns adorned with glyphs, enchantments to augment their accuracy, make the bullets bite even deeper? I took pride in never having to know how it felt to have an ensorcelled bullet lodged in my body.

The door clicked shut, then hummed as my new roommate slammed up against it, pressing his nose to the window so closely I’d be surprised if the glyphs didn’t leave marks in his skin. One last attempt to reason with the agent, his words plaintive and a little pitiful.

“Let me out. Please. This has all been a huge misunderstanding.”

“Sir, if you’d kindly step away from the door.” The agent’s voice was muffled slightly by the wood and glass barrier. “I won’t tell you again. The consequences can be very—unpleasant.”

I chuckled bitterly and shook my head. “I’d do what he’s asking, if I were you. Unless you’re into some casual electrocution.”

His eyes locked with mine like he was seeing me for the first time. His hands sprang from the door as he backed up. The agent whispered, gestured, reactivating the wards before leaving us locked inside, the steady beat of his footsteps fading into a faint trail of despair.

The man’s shoulders fell, sloped and rounded as he accepted his fate. His arms dropped to his sides, his eyes grazing the floor, searching the walls, avoiding my gaze. A little embarrassed, maybe?

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were there and—well, I’m not normally like this, and—well, sorry.”

I shrugged, legs crossed like I was in a waiting room, which was how MEA detainment often felt. I just wished they’d leave some magazines.

“We’ve all done something a little bit illegal.” I waved at him, at the door. “These people are pricks at the best of times, but they’re mostly fair. Mostly.”

“Hardly anything fair about this.” He gestured at me, at the metal folding chairs, the featureless table. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Three hours? Half a day? I can barely tell. Take a load off. You’ll be here a while, I can promise you that.”

His hands balled into fists, still standing rigid and defiant. “I was just authenticating a manuscript. It wasn’t even that difficult. And then it all went to hell.”

My hand reached reflexively for my pocket. But my brass knuckles weren’t there, of course. This talk about authenticating, though. Was he an expert? One of those eggheads who knew about relics and rites and ancient languages?

He certainly looked the part. His hair in a tangled, tousled mess, maybe from being roughed up, or maybe from forgetting to run a comb through it. The top buttons of his shirt undone, the sleeves and shoulders a little askew.

Disheveled. That was the word. This guy had seen better days, would probably clean up nice. But looking like this, making a fuss, a little mussed—why did I like that so much? Pretty cute, if I had to be honest.

Circles under the eyes, but in a good way, somehow. This was someone who spent his nights poring over books, reading about forgotten secrets written in mysterious tongues.

Nothing mysterious about his tongue in particular, though, the soft pink of it sweeping across his lips as he collected himself. The long, scholarly fingers, slender in contrast to the sturdiness of his hands.

Fuck. I’d been alone on the road too long. First guy they threw into a box with me, and I was already close to overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts. Intriguing thoughts.

He finally stepped over to the empty chair, all lean and long-limbed as he sat a careful distance away from me. He swept his hair out of his face, glancing around the room, through the frosted enchanted window, with barely concealed disdain.

And then he had to go and ruin it.

“I don’t belong here, you know. I’m not like that.”

I sat up straighter, my ears pricking. “I’m sorry. Not like what, exactly? Are you suggesting I deserve to be here? I’ll have you know, I’m only in here on a technicality.”

His eyes traveled down, then back up my body, assessing me, slicing me apart. This little jerk. I could tell part of him was checking me out. The other part was wondering why I was locked in there with him.

But could I blame him? One look at me and anyone would be convinced I was the rougher sort of customer. One or two scabs on my knuckles. A look of perpetual disdain in my eyes, because the best defense, I found, was wearing my resting bastard face.

And not to brag, but I had a body built for resilience. And other very physical activities, to boot. Kind of necessary when my work occasionally got me entangled with the more dangerous side of the supernatural.

Maybe a pesky vampire needed some gentle convincing to stop terrorizing a local village. Or sometimes you just needed a guy who could wade through the fire and punch a wizard in the face.

The man blinked at me. “And what technicality might that be, exactly?”

“It was a—a customs issue.” I glowered at my hands, my thumbs twiddling. “I forgot to declare something.”

He sniffed, a sharp inhalation that was as judgmental as a laugh. “The MEA is well known for being touchy about how magical artifacts move in and out of their territory. In fact, it’s one of their mandates. You weren’t”—his eyes widened—“a smuggler? Were you bringing in stolen goods?”

I turned my glower on him. I hadn’t even said anything about the knuckles, and now I definitely wasn’t going to. Screw this guy. He didn’t need to know about the very awesome, very magical thing that they confiscated from me.

“No! I’m not a smuggler. I’m a retrieval expert. That’s my entire line of work. Fetching and finding these things. What makes you think you know any better, anyway?”

He sat up straight, tugging on his collar, suddenly interested in making himself look all professional and scholarly. “I work with artifacts and manuscripts every day. Trust me, I know all about ‘retrieval experts’ like you.”