Gremlin Night, Dale Smith [easy books to read in english .txt] 📗

in the park had been much longer. Magic can distort time. Illusions definitely mess with your time sense, and I’d gotten a double dose of both. It turned out I’d been there for a few hours. It was now after three A.M. Dawn was only a few hours away. What seemed like a very low priority was now a very real threat.

Dawn.

It was still a few hours away, but the daylight divide loomed ahead, when the ebbing nocturnal magic transformed into daytime magic. Normally, the transformation was a quiet, subtle thing, like a soft fluttering of wings.

The solstice night, the longest of the year, had the sharpest transition. The mana Gott had been siphoning and using to build up whatever massive magic he had planned, loomed like a thunderhead. When daybreak hit, that mountain of nocturnal magic wouldn’t just ebb into the dawning light of the new day, as the R.U.N.E. saying went.

If nocturnal magic was powerful enough, fueled by enough mana, it wouldn’t transform into day magic. Instead, it would rage into the daylight, trying to spread darkness to protect itself.

It would be like an eclipse crashing into an arcane hurricane, and the Hidden would be thrust into the consciousness of the ordinary world. Magic would be out in the open, exposed for all to see. Tonight’s outbreaks would be the merest echo compared to the hurricane of manifestations that would roar into existence in Portland.

I gunned the Ducati as I crossed the bridge. Clouds scudded low overhead. It looked like more rain. Always more rain in Stumptown. I was born here and it was one thing I didn’t miss when I was away.

Something black and oblong flitted past me. I thought I heard a high-pitched buzz, but it was hard to tell with low rumble of the Ducati’s engine. I darted a glance over my shoulder.

Light reflected off rapidly beating giant moth-like wings. The creature swooped up in an arc behind me, and flew back in my direction. Huge multifaceted eyes, like giant opals, shone in the dark. The manifestation sped closer.

I accelerated.

The light at the west end of the bridge ahead was red. A panel truck slowly moved through the intersection. I leaned hard to the right, swerving around the truck. Time seemed to slow as the truck’s back end grew larger and larger. I slid past it, then righted myself and opened the throttle as the Ducati drove onto Highway Thirty.

I was heading toward the Garage, and the industrial area where I’d nearly fallen to my death earlier tonight, saved only by the fly-by-night that could have been cousin to the thing chasing me.

I glanced back a second time. The creature swooped down on me, four human-like arms unfolding beneath it, two pairs of hands reached for me.

Curses! I twisted away from the creature. The Ducati started to weave. I swung my head back around.

A black SUV with dark-tinted windows was parked across the highway just adownhill, beside an ancient boat building.

Strong hands grabbed me under my shoulders and pulled me up. I fought to stay put, my thighs gripping the motorcycle’s seat but the manifestation yanked me skyward. The Ducati drove forward for another twenty yards, then tipped over and crashed into the pavement, flipping over and over, a shower of sparks trailing behind it. The bike hurdled off the road, down a weed-covered embankment and plunged out of sight into the river. Water fountained up. I gulped.

So much for my awesome ride.

I stopped trying to fight the manifestation that held me. The highway was twenty feet below me. We flew down to the black SUV just as its doors opened. Three big men in black suits got out, followed by a blonde in a pantsuit and an annoyed looking red-headed guy, also in a black suit, holding a silver rod.

My feet reached the pavement and the manifestation released me just before I smacked into the SUV. Two of the big guys grabbed me from either side.

“You’ve been a busy little criminal,” Dara Kind said, looking daggers at me. “That ends now. You are under arrest for magical crimes.”

The red-head holding the silver rod was Dara’s partner, Riley. The cords bulged in his neck, and his lips pressed into a hard line. He pointed the rod at my chest. The two big guys holding me pinned my arms behind my back while a third patted me down, taking my binding knife, and reaching into my biker jacket.

“Hey!” I tried to squirm away from his grabby hands, but no luck. He found the blood amulet and yanked it out. He held it out to Dara.

“Dabbling in blood magic. I knew it!” Dara snapped.

“You don’t have any authority to arrest me, even if I had committed a crime,” I protested, as the two big guys holding my arms hauled me up to the SUV.

Dara smiled thinly at me. “I think you’ll find I have all the authority I need.”

Her muscle unceremoniously shoved me into the backseat. Before I could scramble out the other side, I was handcuffed, my arms behind me, and then buckled in. Dara sat in the front passenger seat, one of the men-in-black types took the wheel, and I was squeezed between the other two, while Riley sat behind me, still brandishing that silver rod.

The SUV turned and headed into Portland.

“Maybe you can take me to the local R.U.N.E. office,” I said, “since you’re headed that way.”

Dara turned in her seat and regarded me with an icy stare. “Oh, I think your soon-to-be former masters won’t want you back, once they learn what you’ve been up to.”

I cocked my head. “This arrest violates the inter-agency protocols.”

“Not if the arrestee is guilty of criminal conduct. Which you are.” She looked down her nose at me.

“Mana spew,” I swore.

Dara’s eyes widened and then she laughed sharply. My muscle escort laughed on both sides.

“Ah, yes, R.U.N.E. and its silly little coping mechanism. A ridiculous replacement for mundane swearing. What a waste of time and energy.”

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