Vintage Soul by David Niall Wilson Read Free Book Online

much of the fire was illusion, and how much was the real fire with an illusion impressed upon it.   If he leaped forward and the face vanished, he faced the very real danger of setting himself on fire.   If, on the other hand, the fire had been put out to protect whoever stood within the illusion, then Donovan might be able to leap onto the grate and drag them out into the open.
    Â  He hesitated, and all decisions became moot.   The flames crackled and flared.   The heat from the fire might have been an illusion, but if so that illusion was very real.   Donovan stumbled back with a curse.   Fire engulfed the eyes in the flame and soared up the inside of the chimney with a roar.   The defense held.   Donovan knew that his unwanted visitor was battering against the spell containing it within the fireplace.   So far he had not proven strong enough, but if he continued as he was, he might cause the entire structure to explode from the contained energy.
    There was a snap, like a rubber band drawn too tight and parting.   A hideous scent of sulfur permeated the air in the room, and the fire, no longer bottled up, spurted from a fissure in the center of the fireplace grate, shooting from mid-air.   Donovan cursed and drew a symbol with his free hand.   Where his finger passed the air glowed silver, and when he finished with a flurry, the glow formed a fine mesh of luminescence and shot across the room, directly into the path of the escaping jet of flame.
    When the mesh he’d created settled over the fiery leak, Donovan cried out.   Light, feathery threads of illumination shot back to his fingers from the net he’d formed, and they glowed brighter where the two forces collided.   Donovan closed his eyes and concentrated.   He knew he needed to close off the breach in his defense, and that he had to do it quickly.   The flames had already leaked out and dripped along the fine lines of power toward his hand.   If they reached him before he was able to patch the spell, he would lose control of it entirely.
    Distracted, he missed the first flash of shadow against the light of the fire.   Two glittering eyes launched from the fireplace and soared over his head.   Donovan staggered, straightened, and concentrated.   Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the shadow had wings, and was soaring about the room, narrowly avoiding walls and curtains.   Each swoop took the creature lower, until finally, with a great cry, it alighted on the third shelf from the top along the wall behind Donovan and began picking frantically at the spines of the books there with its beak.
    Donovan curse and spun, grabbing for the bird, but he could not reach it, and in the second his concentration shifted, the flames roared.   He whirled to face them, saw with shock that in that second of dropped attention the fire had dripped down the threads toward his outstretched fingers like molten wax.    He muttered a single word and stepped forward.   The droplets cascading toward him quivered, hovered in place, and then slowly retreated toward the glowing mesh.  
    Donovan pressed his advantage, and within seconds he had moved a step closer to the fire, and then another, pressing the fire relentlessly back.   There was no hint of the glowing eyes, or the ethereal face in that fire.   All of the intruder’s strength had been diverted into that single breach in Donovan’s defenses.
    Cleo leaped to the first shelf and launched herself upward.   A long swipe sent the bird fluttering upward, but as the cat passed, already spinning for a second lunge, the bird cawed in triumph and reached out with both taloned feet.   Gripping the spine of a thin, leather tome, the raven launched back and up, narrowly missing a collision with the back of Donovan’s head.
    Cleo bounded off the shelves, planted her rear feet on Donovan’s shoulder and launched herself after the