awful caused
Dahlia’s chest to tighten. She really didn’t want the animal
getting hurt because she followed Dahlia into something dangerous.
“Stay here, okay?” she said, lending a little force to the word
“stay.”
The dog whined softly, but sat down as if
she were well trained and had been with Dahlia for years. Dahlia
nodded. “Good girl.”
Slowly she turned back to the building and
began creeping toward it. As she moved, she wrapped herself in
protective magic, adding layers with each step. First was a shroud
of silence so whoever was in the building wouldn’t hear her coming.
Next was a scent blocker, so that if they were something akin to
shifters or even other vampires, they wouldn’t smell her. She
placed a shield around herself as best she could, one that would
protect her from the brunt of most magic, but shields were power
sapping, so she left it minimal and moved on. The final thing she
did was wrap herself in darkness. This time, the word was fitting,
because it was actual darkness plain and simple that she used – to
help hide her from sight.
Approximately ten feet from the single door
of the building, another cry rang out, splitting the night and
halting her in her tracks. Dahlia took a deep breath, swallowing
with a dry throat past a lump of sudden hesitation. That cry wasn’t
human. She could hear the difference in it now. There was a
vibration to it that was not only inhuman, but unnatural. It was
the kind of sound difference that only something magical could
make.
With that in mind, she decided on a new
approach, and ducking inside a spell that allowed her body to
dematerialize for just a moment, she passed through the stone outer
wall of the building, and into the space on the other side.
Chapter Thirteen
What she found when she
came out on the other side of the warehouse wall was not at all
what she’d been expecting. Some kind of human gang fight or a
terrible form of initiation to a twisted fraternity or maybe even a
gang rape in progress – that was what she’d braced herself for.
She hadn’t braced
herself for what was clearly the attempted summoning and capture of
an otherworldly being. She’d seen this kind of thing before, in the
drawings of a few of the texts she’d gone over while studying under
Lalura. This kind of magic was forbidden. It wasn’t black magic or
dark magic – it was wrong magic. Slavers used it. No one and nothing wanted
to be a slave.
The complicated symbols drawn into the
cement floor of the warehouse surrounded a wide circle
approximately ten by ten feet. The circle and the symbols were
glowing. A band of hooded figures standing around the amalgamation
of drawings held out hands that were also glowing. The entire
warehouse was lit with the reddish light emitted by the goings-on
within it, but what burned the brightest was the thing trapped
inside the circle itself.
This is where the screaming
is coming from , she thought. And
piggy-backing on that verification was the knowledge that everyone
in the room was almost instantly aware of her arrival. Her shields
and protective spells had dropped the moment she entered the room,
perhaps canceled by some negating wards.
Her sudden and unexpected meld through the
wall halted a wail of pain or anger – she couldn’t tell which – and
brought the creature in the circle spinning around to face her.
Eyes that burned locked on hers mere moments before every other set
of eyes in the warehouse followed, and she was embraced by the
glares of half a dozen magic users.
A number of things happened
inside a person’s mind and body when they found themselves in real,
and possibly mortal, danger. The five senses of the body were
triggered to instantly perceive the body’s immediate environment.
This information was then sent to the brain. The brain began to
work faster on the information than one can truly imagine,
processing it at light speed, and sending the results into a body’s
various systems. Adrenaline
Dahlia’s chest to tighten. She really didn’t want the animal
getting hurt because she followed Dahlia into something dangerous.
“Stay here, okay?” she said, lending a little force to the word
“stay.”
The dog whined softly, but sat down as if
she were well trained and had been with Dahlia for years. Dahlia
nodded. “Good girl.”
Slowly she turned back to the building and
began creeping toward it. As she moved, she wrapped herself in
protective magic, adding layers with each step. First was a shroud
of silence so whoever was in the building wouldn’t hear her coming.
Next was a scent blocker, so that if they were something akin to
shifters or even other vampires, they wouldn’t smell her. She
placed a shield around herself as best she could, one that would
protect her from the brunt of most magic, but shields were power
sapping, so she left it minimal and moved on. The final thing she
did was wrap herself in darkness. This time, the word was fitting,
because it was actual darkness plain and simple that she used – to
help hide her from sight.
Approximately ten feet from the single door
of the building, another cry rang out, splitting the night and
halting her in her tracks. Dahlia took a deep breath, swallowing
with a dry throat past a lump of sudden hesitation. That cry wasn’t
human. She could hear the difference in it now. There was a
vibration to it that was not only inhuman, but unnatural. It was
the kind of sound difference that only something magical could
make.
With that in mind, she decided on a new
approach, and ducking inside a spell that allowed her body to
dematerialize for just a moment, she passed through the stone outer
wall of the building, and into the space on the other side.
Chapter Thirteen
What she found when she
came out on the other side of the warehouse wall was not at all
what she’d been expecting. Some kind of human gang fight or a
terrible form of initiation to a twisted fraternity or maybe even a
gang rape in progress – that was what she’d braced herself for.
She hadn’t braced
herself for what was clearly the attempted summoning and capture of
an otherworldly being. She’d seen this kind of thing before, in the
drawings of a few of the texts she’d gone over while studying under
Lalura. This kind of magic was forbidden. It wasn’t black magic or
dark magic – it was wrong magic. Slavers used it. No one and nothing wanted
to be a slave.
The complicated symbols drawn into the
cement floor of the warehouse surrounded a wide circle
approximately ten by ten feet. The circle and the symbols were
glowing. A band of hooded figures standing around the amalgamation
of drawings held out hands that were also glowing. The entire
warehouse was lit with the reddish light emitted by the goings-on
within it, but what burned the brightest was the thing trapped
inside the circle itself.
This is where the screaming
is coming from , she thought. And
piggy-backing on that verification was the knowledge that everyone
in the room was almost instantly aware of her arrival. Her shields
and protective spells had dropped the moment she entered the room,
perhaps canceled by some negating wards.
Her sudden and unexpected meld through the
wall halted a wail of pain or anger – she couldn’t tell which – and
brought the creature in the circle spinning around to face her.
Eyes that burned locked on hers mere moments before every other set
of eyes in the warehouse followed, and she was embraced by the
glares of half a dozen magic users.
A number of things happened
inside a person’s mind and body when they found themselves in real,
and possibly mortal, danger. The five senses of the body were
triggered to instantly perceive the body’s immediate environment.
This information was then sent to the brain. The brain began to
work faster on the information than one can truly imagine,
processing it at light speed, and sending the results into a body’s
various systems. Adrenaline
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