“Well, well, lookee what we’ve got here,” he growled, holding her wrist up and yanking back her cuff. The light from the streetlamp revealed her sorcerer’s tattoo, stark against her paleskin. “What’s your game, huh?” the man demanded, sparks of fury blazing in his dark eyes.
“Here, Aloysius, leave her alone,” Tobias protested feebly. “She ain’t hurtin’ nuffin.”
“Oh yeah? She’s a sorceress. A sorceress what’s been talking to the wardsmen. Sounds like something the Big Man is going to want to know about.”
Luna gasped as another set of iron fingers clamped down hard on her upper arm. She turned to find the tall fellow just at her shoulder, glaring down at her from under his flat cap. “Let go of me!” she gasped, her voice too thin, too tight. She shook her head, drawing breath to cry for help.
But the old man clamped a smelly hand across her mouth. “None of that now, doll,” he snarled. “Unless you’re gonna blast me with Dark Magic, I suggest you shut that pretty mouth of yours. Now, you’re going for a little walk with us.”
“Aw, come on, Aloysius, just let her go,” Tobias whined.
“Sorry, Tobe.” The older man grinned, displaying far too many rotten teeth. “This dame’s got a date with the Big Man tonight.”
The warehouse district was established on a severe grid and made up of a seemingly endless series of big, square, brick buildings, indistinguishable from one another save by the numbers nailed to their doors. Even these were nearly impossible to read by the dull street lights scattered intermittently here and there between buildings. A thick mist rolled in from the harbor, casting the atmosphere in shades of gothic gloom, and Nigel was glad to know that Luna was safely back home at the shop and not wandering around down here by her foolish self.
Despite her insistence that, at this relatively early hour of the evening, it was safe enough, Nigel couldn’t help startling at every flickering shadow or indistinct, lurching form. Of which there were plenty.
A whistling security officer passed far too close. Nigel, who was just turning onto the stretch of street that housed warehouses 10-16, saw the man silhouetted in front of him and withdrew, placing his back against the wall. Damn—his footscraped rather loudly on the pavers. The whistling stopped, and the security officer called out a sharp, “Who’s that there then?”
Though he trusted Yorik Balthazar’s robe to do the trick, Nigel couldn’t help the nervous beating of his heart as the beam of a flashlight shone through the folds of enchanted cloth and into his eyes. Hissing softly, Nigel turned his face away.
“I said, who’s that there then?” the security officer repeated, his voice a little less certain.
Nigel held his breath.
“Damn ghosts,” the man muttered after a moment. “I keep tellin’ them, I says, there’s odd sort of fings floatin’ around where they shouldn’t, but does anyone listen to me, oooooh, no . . .”
He carried on his way, muttering as he went and taking his flashlight with him. Nigel let out a little huff of air. He wondered idly if the security officer was talking about the simulacrums, if he’d caught a glimpse or two of those unsettling apparitions which had haunted Ballycastle these last many months in search of Luna. Until Nigel—with help from Garden—destroyed them all, that is.
Stepping out from the shadows, he took stock of his surroundings, eyes narrowed, considering his options. Most likely this delivery would take place at one of the warehouses closer to the shore. As for the distilled Dire Matter itself, it would be shipped in silver-lined cases, which would prevent it from being detected even by the most magically-attuned senses. And if Nigel couldn’t discern it, the SSSD certainly did not possess sensors strong enough for the task. They would be relying on some hot tip dropped from the mouth of a CI to get them to the right location, but that was information to which Nigel did not have access.
But there were other signs he knew to watch for, signs which a non-sorcerer would certainly miss. Even with the Sovereign Troth preventing him from working any fresh magic, he coulddiscern magic, especially if it had been recently wrought. And whoever received this shipment tonight would have taken special pains to protect themselves.
They would have set protection wards. Not unlike those Nigel himself had once placed around the boundaries of The Arcane Bouquet. Wards to ward off wardsmen.
Keeping his eyes peeled, Nigel ventured down through the warehouses, Yorik Balthazar’s robe wafting wraithlike in his wake. His own wards had been all but undetectable; without the assistance of the houndsnose blossom, even Luna would have failed to notice them. But most sorcerers did not perform to the same level of precision which Nigel demanded of himself. He would certainly spot something amiss, some faint trace of anti-glitter, some shimmer in the walls of reality, some—
Ah!
He stopped across the street from Warehouse 13, an imposing structure with a blocky base and peaked, triangular roof. The windows were all arched and seemed like black voids in the brick face of the building. One would easily assume it was locked-up and abandoned for the night.
But on the sidewalk perimeter there lingered the faintestwobbleof unreality, just on the edge of perception. When Nigel focused his attention, the wobble vanished entirely, but when he allowed himself to look at it only sideways, it shimmered back into being on the edge of his awareness. A subtle spell indeed. Just not quite subtle enough.
The splash of waves on concrete reached Nigel’s ear as he crossed the street. This warehouse, as he’d guessed, was set right down close to the shore. Easy access for a smuggler’s boat. His dressing gown floating about him, Nigel edged himself toward that little shimmering patch of wrongness in the air. He knelt and ran his hand over the rough sidewalk, very slowly, very carefully, until he felt it—the shimmering heat of the Dire. Thisspell was recently done and by an expert sorcerer, no less. Made with distilled Dire Matter, as the summoning of fresh Dire would alert the wardsmen.
Now that he’d found the first one, Nigel became aware of more: a whole series of wards, surrounding the entire building. It must have taken a great deal of distilled Dire Matter to work such a warding. No wonder the sorcerer responsible needed this new shipment! But Nigel had to give him credit, whoever he was: the spellwork was strong. There was no way Ward the Wardsman and his lads were going to find this place tonight. So long as the sorcerer in question remained within the protections of this warding, he could perform whatever acts of sorcery he liked. No sensors would pick it up.
Nigel looked down, peering at the anchor used to plant the spell. It was a little black shoe-button, imbedded in the sidewalk. Completely innocuous. Nigel himself would have walked right on by had he not been searching for this very thing. Whoever had done this was a proper sorcerer. Not Calista Anguish, then. Her power was greater than that which Nigel sensed here, but her understanding wasn’t up to this level of craftsmanship. No, this was the work of a master. Whoever had done this made up for his lack of innate force with highly-attuned skill. It was impressive. Very impressive.
It was also . . . familiar.
Nigel frowned. He’d known there would be sorcerers down here tonight. But there were sorcerers and then there were Dark Sorcerers. Unless he missed his guess, this was a work of Dark Sorcery. Which meant he needed to tread carefully. Because whoever it was, they probably knew each other. Dark Sorcery circles weren’t especially broad in this part of the world. The last thing Nigel needed was to be recognized by someone from that set.
Clenching his jaw, he scowled down at the little boot button. He could only hope he wouldn’t live to regret this. With a bit of effort and a blunting of his fingernails, Nigel managed to pry the button out from the sidewalk, trailing a long tail of anti-glitter as he did so. It was the work of a moment to twist and break the spell.
The whole warding shivered.
Nigel waited, frozen where he crouched, his senses on high alert. The sorcerer would feel that compromising of his spell. Hopefully, since the spell was so large and complex, he would take it as a flaw in the working, not an act of interference. In the meanwhile, this point of weakness might just give Ward the Wardsman and his crew a shot at finding their intended target. No skin off Nigel’s nose either way.
