half-lich 02 - void weaver by katerina martinez Read Free Book Online Page B

going then. We don’t want to upset the magistrate.”
    “No,” Jim said. “We don’t.”
    He turned around and started toward the front door, but Isaac called to him and stopped him just as he was about to leave.
    “You forgot your umbrella,” Isaac said.
    “Keep it,” Jim said, “I won’t need it.”
    The librarian left Isaac alone in the apartment once more. He could hear the rain hitting the windows—it had picked up—and a car horn blaring on street level. Curious, Isaac approached the umbrella, pulled it out of the sink, and took it to the bathroom. Most of the water had come off by now, but Isaac needed the sink more than he did the bath, so relocating it seemed like the sensible thing to do.
    It wasn’t until Isaac was about to drop the umbrella into the bathtub that he felt the sudden rush of magic race up his arm and into his chest. The sensation, one he hadn’t felt in almost a week, was so foreign it caused him to shake and drop to one knee. He held onto the rim of the bathtub for support and allowed himself a moment to recover, breathing deeply through the nose and out through the mouth, until the wave had completely washed through his system and he had resurfaced.
    That was when he noticed his magic bangle had started glowing blue for the first time in days, but this wasn’t the strangest thing—neither was the simple fact that, somehow, magic was allowed to operate within these walls. The strange thing here was that the light from the bangle was causing odd writing on the surface of the umbrella to reveal itself. They were scribbles and lines, mostly illegible while the umbrella was still shut, but when he opened it the writing started to make sense.
    “Son of a bitch,” he said, smiling.

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 5

     
    Messy Business
    Cameron’s Harley purred smoothly as it hugged the asphalt of I-95, a chrome ball running along a half-pipe. The moon was full and high tonight, and it bathed the dark countryside in a soft silver glow. With the wind in her hair, the rumbling bike beneath her, and the leathery smell coming off the back of Cameron’s jacket, Alice found herself lost in mundane thoughts; thinking about books she hadn’t been reading, music she hadn’t been listening to, and wondering why she hadn’t bought a bike instead of a car.
    A bike would be much more practical in her line of work. Besides, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have the money for one. She had simply not considered getting one until now. How was that possible? Hadn’t she spent the majority of her 20’s wanting a bike? Craving the freedom? Had she really forgotten one of the biggest wants she had ever dreamed up?
    Nyx did this , she thought , and she wondered what else she had forgotten.
    Trees became low-rise apartment buildings, and the highway shrank to a narrow corridor of cars as they rode deeper into the city. Almost immediately, the fresh, grassy, rural air was choked out by the putrid stench of car exhaust, dirty, wet streets, and human life. But at least there were coffee shops, restaurants, and places to shop.
    Cameron rode into the Victoria district and took her right up to the front door of her office. There were many obvious reasons as to why she hadn’t allowed Dustin to visit this place in the entire week she had spent locked up at the safe house. It wasn’t that she didn’t trusthim, but her office was her place of business; the place where she kept her secrets, her safe, and her files.
    “Wait here,” she said to Cameron as she strolled up to the front door, retrieving her keys from her back pocket.
    “Out here? Why?”
    “You don’t get to come in here unless you’re a client.”
    Cameron turned the ignition off, slipped off his bike, and came up to the door of WERNER INVESTIGATIONS. “You’re right,” he said, “I’m not a client, but I’m technically your partner.”
    Alice rolled her eyes and unlocked the door. There, at her feet, was a week’s worth of newspapers and