Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (2 page)

I sat up slowly and groaned. Pain flowed from my left arm all the way down my back and
, oddly enough, to my right foot. Worse, I couldn’t even feel my hand.

Two of the rings were glowing red, singing my skin, and my fingers were the size of sausages. A jagged red pattern stretche
d all the way down to my elbow.

More noise echoed from the front of the warehouse. I crawled to my feet and rotated my shoulder, trying to shrug off the dizziness.

Alright. Round two.

I stepped out into the aisle, drawing my pistol from its shoulder holster and trying to ignore the room spinning around me. Unsteadily, I made my way toward the Wizard. The commotion had stopped. The only way this was going to work was if I was quick, silent, and smart.

Then I heard a new voice, one that stopped me dead in my tracks. I closed my eyes and sighed, pressing my back against the shelf. I said a silent prayer, and peeked around the corner, hoping I was wrong.

It wasn’t my da
y though. Sure enough, Leo Saigan was standing over one of the gangsters, his narrow, black staff pressed into the man’s throat. Smoke drifted up from the tip, forming a feline-shaped cloud complete with a pair of glowing red eyes.

Nope. Game over. Fuck the ore and fuck Teplov. I was going home.

“Did you see something, William?” Leo asked calmly in his smooth Virginian accent. “Or where you just showing off?”

Leo was probably one of the most dangerous Wizards in the States. He was educated and imaginative, a high ranking member of Ben’s Charterhouse. He understood the true majesty of magic, the true potential of the Aether. He lacked the raw power that Cruder had just tossed my way and didn’t have near the stamina, but he was infinitely more dangerous.

“I saw him!” Cruder snapped, snarling at Leo.

“And what did you see?” he asked.

Cruder sputtered, grasping for something to say.

“Nerves,” Leo said, smirking, “You have to watch your nerves if you want to make it in the Guild.”

“I saw him,” Cruder snapped. “He was up there!”

“Yes,” Leo replied, “but if you want to go and tell your boss that his godson was the one that smuggled ten tons of our property from one of our worlds, I think we wil
l need more proof than that. Go and check the rest of the warehouse.”

Cruder shot Leo a nasty look but did
as he was told. I had to get out of here before they found me. Maybe I could find a back exit or something.

I limped my way toward the back of the warehouse, trying to make as little noise as possible. There were loading dock doors, and I could probably bust through one of those, but it would make a lot more noise than I wanted.

“McDane!” I heard Cruder holler. “Where are you, McDane?”

I ducked behind one of the shelves and peeked around the corner. My confidence had taken a blow, but I was still somewhat certain I could take Cruder. Not head to head, but he wasn’t really that difficult to get one up on. That had to be why he was with Leo. He was an amazing mixture of arrogance and insecurity.

Alright, take out Cruder. Make it noisy, provide a distraction. Leo would move toward the back and then I could double back and get the hell out of here. I felt kind of bad leaving Teplov’s men, but not bad enough to keep me from doing it. Besides, they’d probably bolt as soon as Leo’s back was turned.

Cruder stepped between the aisles, his staff raised before him.

Okay, one more time. I held my breath and pictured a black landscape filled with purple mist. I peered into the mist, reaching my hand into the forest of my mind. I would have loved to have thrown some fire at the situation, but those days were gone.

I reached my hand deeper and gritted my teeth as I felt them skitter across my skin.

Fear clenched my throat and I resisted the urge to jerk my arm back, to thrash around, swat my clothes, curse, scream and flail about. For three agonizing seconds I waited, letting them crawl from my mind.

I opened my eyes long enough to see the last spider form from the Aether, its shiny, black carapace glinting in the dim light of the warehouse. They crawled up my arm, making their way toward my face. I looked just a bit Deeper and they became fuzzy, smokier, their true nature revealing themselves under my vision. The little motes of light in their abdomen could just
be made out. I grabbed hold of the motes with my mind and they froze. Quickly as I could, I knitted them together.

This was going to tricky. I didn’t have any real control over these things. They had a solid basis in several nasty things that inhabited my mind, a byproduct of a bad decision years back, but they weren’t real, just residue. And since I didn’t have any control over the parasites they were birthed from, there was only so much I could do to guide them. The best I could do was make Cruder their most immediate priority and hope they thought he looked tasty.

I released my concentration and shook the frozen Nidian constructs from my clothes, making sure none had crawled under my sleeve. They hit the ground with a soft pattering, hardly audible under the torrent of rain that was still going on outside. After a moment of stillness, their legs twitched and they shot off in all directions.

Then I took a step back into the shadow and watched.

Cruder was making his way through the aisles, a ball of red, angry fire in his hand. God, he was a moron. Half of the freight in here was dry and crated. Had he never heard of a warehouse fire?

Suddenly, he hollered, the flame dying as he slapped his neck. He cursed, looking around. Then he hit himself again. He began to thrash
about, tearing at his clothing.

They were doing better than I
’d hoped. With any luck, whatever venom they had in their putrid little bodies would put him down. Once Leo came for him, I could make my way back to the front-

A random bolt of lightning lanced from Cruder’s staff, interrupting my thoughts. It missed by just a few feet, striking a nearby crate,
and went off like a bomb. I was thrown from my feet for the second time today. Flaming splinters floated down from the air, but he paid them no mind, more bolts of lightning flying from his staff and hand.

No, no, no! This was bad. Everywhere mini fires were catching, growing over the dry wood. All over the warehouse, I could hear shelving and girders failing, twenty foot tall racks collapsing. Avalanches of kindling in a giant tinderbox.

The air was already beginning to fill with smoke. I took that as my cue to leave.

I dragged myself to my feet and worked the slide on my pistol. Killing a Wizard was something I’d never done, and all kinds of a bad idea, but he was standing wi
thin sight of every way out of the burning building. I took a step forward, covering my mouth with my hand.

Suddenly, a wisp of smoke shot through the aisle like a whip and wrapped itself around Cruder’s throat, cutting off his fireworks show. He lifted off the ground, his body
going limp, his staff falling from his fingers. I could just make out his gasping over the crackling of the flames as they grew.

Leo stepped through the aisle, a cloud of black smog circling around his outstretched fist. “I expected a certain amount of decorum from you,” he said, his tone severe but calm. He looked around the warehouse, taking in the sight of the fire. “Would you define this as so, William?”

He dropped his arm and Cruder fell to the ground. Leo eyed the spiders as they skittered over Cruder’s limp form, then peered into the darkness around him. I took a step back into the shadows, avoiding his gaze.

Finally, Leo seemed to make a decision. He planted his staff on the ground and wrapped both hands around the top. Smoke poured from the aisles, angry and violent, swirling around him until he disappeared
beneath it. As suddenly as it had started, the smoke exploded outward in a gust of wind.

And he was gone.

I took a step deeper into the shadow, cradling my swollen arm and ignoring the encroaching fire. Leo was by far one of the most dangerous Wizards I’d ever seen. He’d forgotten more than I knew, which was ironic since I’d forgotten most of what I knew too. Either way, I wasn’t about to just leap into the fray with him.

Well, that was the smart thing and would have been exactly the approach I would have taken if the roof hadn’t started to cave in. A ten foot wide, flaming, and very solid piece of steel landing behind you will convince you that plans are overrated and running is your best option.

I took a deep breath and ran for the front as fast as my feet could move. I ignored Cruder, who was starting to moan on the ground. I ignored the spiders, which hissed and spat even as they dissolved back into Aether. And I ignored the disturbing way the air began to swirl and blow around me. That I ignored most of all.

Above me the lights flickered, sparking and sputtering as the fire grew. A breeze caught me in my legs and nearly toppled me.

Then the black smoke shifted, coalescing into a column of dark vapor before me, forming into Leo’s lithe frame. His form distorted in the smoke, changing into a primal shape with a large head and arms that were too long.

Suddenly, he leapt from the cloud, an emaciated cat-like creature, black as night and twice as frightening. It snarled at me through long, saber
-shaped teeth and sniffed the air. Where its eyes should have been, there was only smooth skin.

He dove for me, silent as smoke and quick as air, and I squeezed off two more quick rounds, barely even taking the time to aim properly.

He covered the distance before the second shot had fired. I dove back, barely avoiding the fine, curved claws he had shape-shifted for himself. Whatever it was in his head that allowed him to become this abomination, it was dark and twisted and scary as hell.

The next few seconds were quick, chaotic and I barely remember them. He drove me back, ignoring the shots that passed through his body like so much wind. He tore and sliced at me, preventing me from pulling any o
f the more interesting talisman from my pockets.

After dodging those black, cloudy claws enough times, I found my back to the fire, Leo blocking my way to the front.

Behind me, I could hear Cruder coming to. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed that he was up on one knee, his already ugly face swollen and lumpy. One eye was sealed shut and he looked pissed. He was already pointing his staff at me, angry, red mist coiling around the wood.

All right, needed to time this closely.

I ducked just as he threw it at me and had a prime, if not somewhat upside-down view of Leo catching the bolt square in the chest. There was a moment of shocked, heh, no pun intended, confusion as the bolt struck home and he was frozen in place, followed by an ear shattering sonic boom and the delightful memory of his form sailing through the air.

I was pretty sure Cruder had just made an enemy, but I would savor that small joy later. For now, the fire was growing and Cruder was hobbling
my way. I jumped to my feet and sprinted toward the door.

Teplov’s men were gone and much to my dismay, they had left the ore. Damnation, if Teplov refused to pay me because of this
, I would bring the Heavens down on his head.

But the fire was spreading, smoke filling the warehouse. Cruder would be coming and for all I knew Leo
was
the smoke.

I took one more look at the dump truck. It would probably survive the fire, but that wouldn’t help me one damn bit. There was no way I could get it out of here. The Guild would find me in minutes. Worse, they would be crawling all over this place in the morning. I couldn’t take the ore. It was set in the real world now, no longer Aether.

Two solid weeks of back breaking labor, Inhaling far more Aether than I was meant to, watching my back for the Guild, dodging lightning bolts.

For nothing.

I cursed my luck as I ducked out of the warehouse.

CHAPTER TWO

Jersey’s head split like a melon
. I grimaced, ignoring the splatter of blood as it landed at me feet.

Rasputin Teplov, the Tin Man, stood over the body, examining his
handiwork. In his hand he held a bloody woodman’s axe made from a single piece of gray metal. He snapped his fingers and one of his bodyguards, a massive example of a man dressed in a sharp, pinstriped suit, handed him a handkerchief.

The Tin Man’s attention strayed from the corpse, to the kneeling figure who just an hour ago had threatened me. He made a show of wiping down the axe blade as he paced in front of the thug.

Teplov was a small guy, not that I’d ever bring that up, just barely over five and a half feet tall, with a slight frame and very little muscle. He had to be in his early fifties but he carried his age well. His face was narrow with sharp blue eyes that barely peaked out over his small, silver spectacles. A clean, gray beard lined his jawline, perfectly sculpted. Controlled, like everything else about him.

When the blade was spotless he spoke, his thick Russian accent playing a harsh counterpoint to his smooth, almost bored demeanor. “Matthew, I am going to give you a choice. Samuel did not receive this choice. Do you understand why?”