Sorcerybound (World's First Wizard Book 2), Aaron Schneider [accelerated reader books .txt] 📗

down at him, her face partially twisted into that fearsome, bestial visage, and nodded as she surged forward. One hand reached down and took him by the wrist, her claws digging through the cuff of his sleeve into his flesh. With the miniscule will he had in reserve, Milo tried to wind ride. All he managed was to make himself lighter, but thankfully, it was enough.

“Meet us up there!” Milo shouted as he rose out of the cab and began flying in a low trajectory toward the stage.

He knew that if there had been even a few soldiers assembled near the stage, he’d have been riddled with incoming fire, but as it was, all he had to contend with were the astonished and sullen glares from Stalin and the dwarf respectively. His boots barely skimming the heads and raised fists of the battling souls beneath him, Milo was afraid he wouldn’t clear the stage, but Rihyani, with a feral howl of effort, dragged him upward before her claws detached from his arm. He hurtled onto the stage as Rihyani arched upward gracefully in time to avoid colliding with the canopy.

Milo wasn’t quite ready for his landing, but the lightening of his failed wind riding meant he came down without breaking both his legs. He did leave off the effort of pushing his will outward, and across the square, half of the monstrous specters dissipated. Milo knew he would need all his attention and energies here.

Milo staggered his first few steps but righted himself as he came to a stop, raptor-headed cane raising level with the dwarf. Ghostly green flames licked the sockets.

“That’s quite enough music for one night,” Milo said, straightening to his full height as he did his level best to not look like he’d almost fallen flat on his face.

Up close, the dwarrow was curious and grotesque. Milo had assumed dwarrow might look like those afflicted with dwarfism with some dash of inhumanity, but he struggled to see how anyone could mistake this creature for a human being. The proportions were all wrong, with a huge leathery face squatting on a barrel-like trunk amidst a profusion of wiry gray hair. The feet and hands were disproportionately outsized as well, nearly twice human proportions. Eyes like polished beetle shells watched at him over a long, drooping nose that looked like it should have been planted in a garden, not hanging from a face.

“So, this is De Zauber-Schwartz,” Zlydzen crowed in a rasping voice that grated on the nerves like a file. “You are younger than I pictured you.”

With a rush of chill wind, Rihyani settled gracefully next to Milo, clawed fingers curled.

“He told you to stop the music, Zlydzen,” Rihyani growled, a wet, leonine sound.

To Milo’s surprise, the dwarrow ceased turning the crank, though he left a hand resting on the handle defiantly. His wide, parched-lipped mouth spread into a jagged saw-edged grin as he looked them both up and down appraisingly.

“I’d always supposed the Shepherds were working openly with the humans, but now I understand precisely how intimate this partnership is,”

Milo had to fight off the ridiculous impulse to justify himself to the Guardian even as Comrade Stalin stepped away from the microphone and moved toward the dwarrow. His movements were stiff, and he clutched his right hand to his abdomen as though it were wounded.

“Keep playing, you fool,” he snarled. “What are you doing?”

Zlydzen didn’t stop scrutinizing Milo and Rihyani as he answered with a cringe-inducing titter. Milo was certain that nails and slate going through a meat grinder would have sounded better.

“Oh, I’m preparing to give you up, Ioseb,” the dwarrow declared. “You’ve served your usefulness to the cause—that is, my cause—and now I’m trading you for my escape. After all, you are here for him, aren’t you?”

Stalin balked, but Milo shook his head slowly.

“No deal,” he said as he let a little flame crackle around the outstretched cane. “We’ve got plenty of room for both of you, so I see no need to trade anything. Now, hands off the organ.”

“You vile little—” Stalin snarled as he made to lunge at Zlydzen, dragging a pistol one-handed from his coat. Milo was quicker.

Snapping his cane down to strike the stage, a sheet of ice unfurled like a glassy runner. Stalin’s rushing feet abandoned him in a rush that sent him reeling to land with a heavy grunt on the suddenly frozen floor. The pistol tumbled from his impact-numbed grip, skittering over to the feet of the pair still crossing hammer and sickle without acknowledging the world around them. Before Stalin could recover his breath, much less his weapon, ice began to creep up the back and arms of his coat, binding him to the stage.

Stalin swore and panted, but the ice held fast.

Zlydzen gave a hooting cheer and slapped his swollen hands together with ungainly exuberance, like a young child imitating what clapping looked like.

“Hehe, isn’t that lovely? O-ho-ho, just marvelous.”

This was the mastermind who won you over to the Guardians? Milo thought as he turned back to the dwarrow with narrowed eyes.

Do not underestimate him, the fetish-locked ghul warned. He’s the most dangerous being you’ve ever met.

“Do you have any more?” Zlydzen cooed, looking at Milo with widening wet eyes. “Oh, come now, please show me a little more, at least.”

Milo wasn’t sure whether he was disgusted or amused and decided it was probably both.

“If you like that,” he said, a smile touching the corner of his face, “you’re going to love this.”

Milo, don—

Milo’s cane twitched toward the street organ, launching a burning lance of witchfire into the machine. He had braced himself for the shriek of metal, the splintering of wood, and even the rocking force of a small explosion. He was ill-prepared, however, for a sudden sonic assault that drove him to his knees. Hammering pulses of auditory stimulation, some heard, some felt, bludgeoned his mind and body. From his knees, he saw Zlydzen cringing as Stalin writhed, unable to raise his frozen arms