Magic Bleeds Read Online Free PDF

against the ward in an ugly burst and fluttered down harmlessly to settle at the chalk line as the pole rolled to a stop.
    Patrice let out a breath.
    “I made the third circle twelve feet high,” I told her. “It isn’t going anywhere, even if it really wants to.”
    “That does it.” Patrice rolled up her sleeves. “Did you put anything into those wards that might fry me if I cross them?”
    “Nope. It’s just a simple containment ward. Feel free to waltz right in.”
    “Good.” She strode down the slope to the glyphs, waving her hand at the tech team fussing with some equipment on the side. “Never mind. It’s too aggressive. We’ll do a live probe, it’s faster.”
    She tossed back her blond hair and stepped into the circle. The chalk glyphs ignited with a faint blue glow. The ward masked her magic, and I could feel nothing past it, but whatever Patrice was working up had to be heavyduty.
    The fuzz shivered. Thin tendrils stretched toward Patrice.
    I wondered who’d called Biohazard. Somebody called. Maybe it was just a good Samaritan passing by.

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    And maybe I would sprout wings and fly.
    Maggie leaned over to me. “How can she enter but the disease can’t leave?”
    “Because of the way I made the ward. Wards both keep things in and keep them out. It’s basically a barrier and you can rig it several ways. This one has a high magic threshold. The disease that killed Joshua is very potent. It’s heavily saturated with magic, so it can’t cross. Patrice is a human, which makes her less magical by definition, and so she can go back and forth as she pleases.”
    “So couldn’t we just wait it out until the magic wave falls and the disease dies?”
    “Nobody knows what will happen to the disease once the magic falls. It might die or it might mutate and turn into a plague. Don’t worry. Patrice will nuke it.”
    In the circle, Patrice raised her hands. “It is I, Patrice, who commands you, it is I who demands obedience. Show yourself to me!”
    A dark shadow rolled over the fleshy fur, spreading into a mottled patina over the pole and the remnants of the body. Patrice stepped back out of the circle. The techs swarmed her with smoke and flowers.
    “Syphilis,” I heard her say. “Lots and lots of magically delicious syphilis. It’s alive and hungry. We’re going to need napalm.”
    Maggie glanced at the still untouched whiskey in my glass. I raised it to my lips and took a sip to make her happy. Fire rolled down my throat. A few seconds later, I could feel my fingertips again. Woo, back in business.
    “Did they clear all of you?” I asked.
    She nodded. “Nobody was infected. A few guys had broken bones, but that’s all. They let everyone go.”
    Thank the Universe for small favors.
    Maggie shuddered. “I don’t understand. Why us? What did we ever do to anybody?”
    She was looking for comfort in the wrong place. I was numb and exhausted, and the stone in my chest Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    hurt.
    Maggie shook her head. Her shoulders hunched.
    “Sometimes there is no reason,” I said. “Just a bad roll of the dice.”
    Her face was drained of all expression. I knew what she was thinking: broken furniture, busted wall, and a bad reputation. The Steel Horse would forever be known as the joint where the plague almost started.
    “Look over there.”
    She glanced in the direction of my nod. Inside the bar, Cash pulled apart a broken table.
    “You’re alive. He’s alive. You’re together. Everything else can be fixed. It can always be worse. Much, much worse.” Trust me on this.
    “You’re right.”
    For a while we sat in silence and then Maggie took a deep breath as if she was going to say something and clamped her mouth shut.
    “What is it?”
    “The thing in the cellar,” she said.
    “Ah.” I pushed upright. I’d rested enough. “Let’s go take care