Hidden Spark (Dark Magic Enforcer Book 6) by Al K. Line Read Free Book Online Page A

was gone.
    "Why do I get the feeling this is a very bad idea?" I muttered before I closed my eyes and stepped into emptiness.

 
     
     
     
    Life in Freefall
    Roughly hewn walls of rock whizzed past, at least I assumed they did, I still had my eyes clamped shut as tight as a dwarf's wallet. My clothes flapped noisily and I wished I'd buttoned up my jacket, and my tie kept hitting my face. Air billowed up my trouser legs, cool and refreshing if it wasn't for the adrenaline and downright wrongness of the situation making me hot.
    On and on it went, falling ever deeper. As far as I was concerned, the drop should take a mere few seconds, but as I approached terminal velocity, and we continued to fall, I eventually had to take a look.
    Whereas I'd expected blackness, or just a hint of light from the hole far above, everything was lit with a ghostly gray-brown light that allowed me to see perfectly well. We weren't in a narrow shaft as I'd assumed, rather in a wide one, with walls as polished as Grandma's ancient table in the dining room no-one ever ate in.
    I was vertical, so I craned my head up and was greeted with only the smallest pinpoint of light indicating the surface far above. We were down deep and it seemed like we weren't arriving any time soon. Looking down was just more and more of the same, the body of Ulod spreadeagled like a professional skydiver, me catching up with him fast.
    Wanting to avoid a collision, I tried to lean forward and copy his position but ended up tumbling head-over-heels, almost crashing into the walls. Somehow, I managed to avoid that particular fate and found myself now facing downward, and I may have let out a little yelp—okay, a scream—as plummeting headfirst into the unknown has that effect on me.
    After a few more false starts I got into position, arms and legs splayed, wind tearing at my clothes, face battered by strong forces as the air parted to make way for a rather amazed enforcer.
    In the end I just grew bored. How deep was this damn tunnel and where did it lead? More to the point, how did you get back out? We kept going, the tunnel morphing, getting wider, carvings appearing in the rock. From crude depictions of dwarves with hammers, changing as we descended, until I became fascinated by the intricate and incredible beauty of both abstract and realist imagery that blended seamlessly in a dizzying display of craft.
    These were tales, recordings of the place and the dwarves that have occupied this netherworld since the beginning of time. A history from their first attempts at decorating their homes right up to present day at the peak of their art.
    Then I understood how I was able to study the work in such detail. We were slowing, no longer plummeting, buoyed by a cushion of air that fought our descent. I changed position so I was standing on air, descending like in an old elevator taking me down to meet those that had requested my assistance.
    What was I doing here? I must be mad to take on a job like this. Dwarves didn't deal with human Hidden in this way, and what was with Ulod? He was an odd one, for sure. His kind never spoke the way he did, with so many words. Was that why he was up top, working in his little pawn shop? I bet it was. A punishment for straying from the way of the dwarf too much. A penance, a sentence until he proved worthy somehow?
    My musings were interrupted as I slowed even more and caught sight of Ulod below me, standing on solid ground.
    Bracing for the impact, I landed with fingertips splayed on the warm rock, one leg bent at the knee, the other behind me. Yeah, Matrix-style on terra firma.
    Ulod tutted beside me, hint of a wrinkled brow beneath eyebrows he really should get trimmed, or better yet, gone over with a powerful lawn mower.
    "Is this him?" came the booming voice of somebody definitely in charge. Would it be a Head of some kind? Dwarves were secretive about their leaders, always seeming to send someone different as representative to Council