Blood & Magic Read Online Free PDF Page A

To say they became tense would have been an understatement, hopping from foot to foot as they fidgeted nervously, their bodies turned slightly away as to make best of any opportunity for escape.
    The door to the council chamber opened and everyone was ushered inside, that was, apart from Meyer and Ruth. Before Helena reached the door, Meyer called out to Helena's assistant, “Boy?”
    The man turned, the two making eye contact for a brief second.
    “
Et cogitationibus tuis
,” Meyer said under his breath, before coughing to conceal his words. “Good luck boy.”
    The man took a double take, confused by the interruption. He turned to ask Helena, but she was gone, having already made her way into the chamber without him. He ran into the room to catch up with her, oblivious to what had happened.
    If one could see magic, and there are those in the alternate community that can, then this spell would have been anything but concealed. Lucky for Meyer, there were no Binders here to catch him. To them, after the glow of purple in Meyer’s eyes, they would see the spell ignite as a wisp of fire and smoke, twisting across the room as it homed in on its target. To Helena’s assistant, the whole spell appeared invisible, bar the goosebumps it produced down his neck.
    “Excellent,” Meyer thought.
    This man, Charles, for he now knew his name, would be useful. Wade might not have wanted Meyer to be in the meeting, but just because he couldn't enter the room himself, it didn't mean he wouldn't be able to find out what was going on. What he was doing was, of course, against magus rule. In fact, if he were found out, it would probably result in his death. Meyer pondered the fact for only a second before deciding that he was old enough not to care anymore. Life was short and making it a fraction shorter at his age made very little difference.
    “Why on the earth have they brought us in, when they are gonna have one of their secret little meetings. Made to stand out here like lemons we are. A right couple of melons-no wait, did I say lemons before?” Ruth said.
    “Oh
do
shut up woman.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “If you want to come and take a seat with me, I can tell you what is happening inside.”
    Ruth battled with herself for a moment, no doubt struggling to resist the urge to issue some retribution for Meyer's rudeness. The two settled into a pair of armchairs at the corner of the room, hidden in the shadows between the skylights.
    “That reminds me,” she said. “Aniseed twist?”
    She held out a crumpled bag of red sweets to Meyer, the smell of aniseed immediately filling the air with an unmistakably pungent smell. It would be rude not to take one and besides, Meyer rarely declined an offer of food. Unwrapping the boiled sweet, he made himself comfortable in the chair and calmed his mind, ready to enter Charles' consciousness.
    Meyer passed through some minor resistance, Charles had had
some
training, but it was at the early stages, so he would never know what was happening. Charles was nervous, that was the first thing Meyer noticed. The fact he preferred to be called Charlie was the second. His favourite food was lasagne which, as he was a little hungry, he was thinking of now, and lastly, an emotion Meyer knew all too well. Love. Charlie loved his fiancé in ways even his mind could not make sense of. However, fear loomed over his relationship; his government job meant they were growing more and more distant. A tough situation and something Charlie was at a loss how to fix, that part of his life flickering across his consciousness like a cold breeze, constantly nagging at him. Charlie hated Helena, which made Meyer smile to himself, although he knew that not to be an exclusive club.
    “What's going on?” Ruth said.
    “Dear, please be patient,” Meyer replied.
    “Don't you be calling me
dear
.”
    Infiltrating someone’s mind like this is a basic part of all mentalist training, it was the subtitles of the art