half-lich 02 - void weaver Read Online Free PDF

harmonized with the light as the magic wards surrounding the apartment engaged and asserted themselves.
    Isaac breathed a deep breath and exhaled the stress and tension. This has gone well , he thought, when he considered all the things that had been said at Court and the introduction of Trapper’s remains to the praetors. This he hadn’t been expecting, and he wanted to kick himself for not having discovered it himself.
    Of course her camera was magic. He knew that. Alice had told him she hadn’t made the camera herself; she had told him it had shown up at her doorstep one morning along with her Chest of Haunts. And if Trapper had been made by a mage, then so had the chest. The question of who and why formed at the forefront of Isaac’s mind, but he couldn’t think about that now. If he thought about Alice too much, or considered the problem too deeply, he may not be able to trick the spells employed against him next time.
    In a way, he thought, it was a good thing he hadn’t been the one to discover the camera’s secret. It was also fortunate that Logan hadn’t surrendered it to the librarian. These two things meant that Isaac had just bought a little more time. He checked his watch, sat down at the table in the plain, boring kitchenette, and opened the book he had left there—the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft. With one leg crossed over the other, Isaac picked up where he had left off thinking he could probably kill a few chapters before the inevitable visit, which would likely be soon.
    Good thing he and the librarian were friends.
     

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER 3

     
    The Lion and the Lich
    Alice groped for the hall light, though her fingers had trouble finding it, and flicked it on. Illumination from the single bare bulb in the ceiling was faint, but there was light enough for her to see the face of the man standing in the door and know she didn’t recognize him. He was wearing a leather jacket, had short, sandy brown hair, three-day old stubble growing on his chin and jaw, and a set of severe, narrow eyes the color of murky seawater.
    “Who the hell are you?” Alice asked, perhaps more aggressively than she had intended to.
    The man put up a hand in a gesture of surrender. The other hand followed. “You must be Alice,” he said, his voice a smooth sip of whiskey in a smoky bar.
    “Who I must be is none of your business. How did you find this place?”
    “How does anyone find anything? I was given a map.”
    “A map?” Alice eyed the threshold of the door and noticed his feet hadn’t yet crossed it. Maybe he couldn’t? There were spells protecting this place, and if he wasn’t supposed to be here he wouldn’t be able to enter. “Who sent you?”
    “Isaac sent me,” he said, “My name’s Cameron. Cameron West.”
    Alice’s body tightened at the sound of Isaac’s name and then relaxed, like an archer who had thought twice about letting an arrow fly. “You know Isaac?”
    Cameron’s hands came back down to rest by his sides. “I do. I’m a friend. He told me you would need my help, said you were a little banged up, so I’m here.”
    “I was hurt, but I’m fine now.”
    “Let me guess… you drank the infusions?”
    “How do you know about those?”
    He smiled, and when he smiled his whole face lit up, even his narrow eyes. “I made them.”
    She looked at the floor again, at the threshold, and then looked up at Cameron. “Alright,” she said, “Come on in.”
    Cameron nodded and stepped through the open arch, moving into the house. A second passed, and then another, and another, and nothing happened. His flesh didn’t fall off. No bolts of lightning raced out of the sky to strike him down. He hadn’t triggered the wards, which was a good thing—the last thing Alice wanted was to deal with the kind of mess she was assured an enemy mage would become if they tried to step through the doors uninvited.
    Alice stepped aside.
    “Nice place,” he said. When he turned to look at