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

just seconds since you opened it. You barely moved your finger on the page.”

I sighed. “That’s not how deciphering works, not this kind,” I said. “It runs at a greatly accelerated time, like faerie, because I’m not reading, I’m binding the script to me. It’s alive, like any other manifestation.”

“But how can you possibly process all of whatever is in there, in virtually no time?” she asked.

“Not easily.” I massaged my temples. “No easy at all.” I staggered up, Tully quickly bracing me as I stood.

“Thanks,” I told him.

I took a breath. “Sylvas wrote a record of what had happened to him and Therese, and what she’d discovered.” I paused, thinking about what I’d seen in my vision.

“Therese was dying of cancer, one that couldn’t be cured,” I said. “She’d been battling it for months. A few days ago, a cloaked wizard came to her doorstep and offered to help, if Therese would turn over her logbooks and the living map of the local mana contours.” I told them the rest of the vision, as quickly as I could, finishing with the connection to a fancy downtown hotel and the stunningly beautiful nymph.

“Let me see if I understand,” Dara said. “This mysterious super-wizard wanted Therese to turn over intel, which revealed the wizard’s connection to someone called Rudy Gott?”

“That’s about right.”

Dara glowered at me. “And I’m expected to take your word?”

“Look, check with your own sentinels, if you have them, or the equivalent. But, it’s obvious to me now that Rudy Gott must have had help. That’s the only explanation.” I took a deep breath. “And Sylvas’s book spelled that out, for me.” I shrugged. “You’re just going to have to decide to trust me, for once,” I told Dara. “We don’t have time for anything else.”

Her glower became an icy glare. Her jaw tightened, then she looked way, and drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

“This does seem to match intel we’ve obtained tonight,” she said, her voice thoughtful. She turned to Riley. “The sylph apparitions.”

He nodded.

“How many do you have info on?” I asked.

“Seven.”

My eyes widened. “Bones of the earth,” I swore. “That many?”

“That may or may not include the ones you and Mister Tully encountered. Our information comes from an augur daemon.”

Augur daemons were forecasters that didn’t last long. R.U.N.E. didn’t use them because we found the practice to be skirting the law. I was surprised that the A.S.A. felt differently. Their hypocrisy was obvious to anyone who wasn’t them.

I put my loathing aside. We had bigger things to deal with.

“Gott’s trying to summon a nymph,” I said. The man was a creep—he’d played me for a fool, but had also behaved in a very leery and creepy fashion. He wanted a girlfriend, the magical kind. Sheesh. “This all comes down to creepy lone wizard who wants a true magical girlfriend.” I mimed gagging.

Tully ignored my gesture. “Well, from what you just told us that seems likely. He certainly is collecting a massive amount of mana, as well as chaos magic.”

“He must be sweating out a big ritual to create his perfect magical girlfriend,” I said. “It must be connected to a hotel, somehow.”

I more than half-expected Dara to laugh in my face.

She didn’t. Instead, her brows furrowed. “I know where. There’s a big Solstice charity ball going on at the new hotel by the Oregon Convention Center, following a multi-day business conference. Bigwigs, movers and shakers, and plutocrats galore will be there to mingle and look like they care.”

Well, what do you know? Dara had my kind of sarcasm in her. It boggled my mind to think we might be a little alike. I refused to believe it.

“There will be a lot of people there,” I said, nodding. “A lot of well-dressed, powerful people, with a lot of good-looking hangers on.” Lots of little black dresses, low cut gowns, and jewelry. The perfect template for a nymph or sylph. That had to be Gott’s objective. But so close to dawn, it would bleed over to daylight.

“Does Gott know what he’s doing?” I asked.

Tully shrugged. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“Rudy Gott is a moron,” Riley said.

“Well, what do you know,” I said. “We actually agree on something.” He shot me a sour look.

Heaven help me, but I did agree with Riley. Gott was an idiot. He was a tool. A tool for someone else. We didn’t know who that was.

“So, we head over to the convention center and stop Gott,” I said. “Should be a cinch.”

Dara gave me a hard look. “Something like that. All right, we don’t have much time.”

“Hold on,” I said. I hated to ask Dara for anything, but needs must. “I’m out of spells. Any chance you have a Restore potion lying around here.” I glanced at Tully. “He could probably use one, too. Oh, and if you have a spare wand, I need one.” Tully’s eyes widened. I mouthed sorry. “Oh, and so does Tully. I drained his wand.” I paused. “Please.”

“I can’t believe you drained my wand,” Tully said.

Amusement lit up Dara’s face. “Certainly.” She nodded at Riley, smiled. “Please get Mister Tully equipped. I’ll see that Ms. Marquez is taken care of.” Riley and Tully left.

Dara waited until the door closed, then her smile turned cold. “We’ll need something special for you.”

She held up the blood amulet and my heart sank.

“Listen, I’m done with that,” I said.

“Oh, I’d say you are. You could be finished because of it. But we don’t have time for that. I’ll bring you something that will replace it, but you’ll have to give me something in return.” She looked down at my hip. “A shadow slug, I see. You must have picked it up after our first encounter, tonight.”

Encounter, that was a laugh. “Yes.”

“I’ll take that,” Dara said.

Please don’t let her, the shadow slug wailed.

“No,” I said. “I won’t.”

She made a show of pursing her lips, thinking. “Well, then you’ll need to give me something else.”

I got the distinct impression she was toying with me,