Rites of Passage Read Online Free PDF

he was destined to meet his own master?
    He’d never taken an apprentice before. He hadn’t had the stomach for it after his own master died. It was time.
    Hell, it was long past time.
    She turned away from him. The gun on her hip made her look like a parody of the cowboys in the old Westerns his dad had liked so much.
    “More of those things are out there,” Finn said to her back. “You could learn how to fight them.”
    “Learn?” Her voice had an edge as sharp as his katana. “I kicked its slimy ass, human.” She turned to glare at him. “Better than what you did.”
    “You shot me,” Finn said. “You weren’t exactly seeing me at my best.”
    She stared at him for a long moment. Finn could see her working things through in her mind. She’d killed the rest of her gang. That might buy her respect among the other goblin gangs, but that respect would be short lived.
    “What’s your name?” he asked.
    “Keesa.” She bit the word off like she hated it. “Why?”
    He tried to smile, but he was pretty sure it came out a grimace. Every part of his body hurt. Guardians weren’t super human. He was going to need medical attention, and soon.
    “I’m Finn.”
    “Finn,” she said. “Stupid human name.”
    “It’s what I’ve got.” He held up a hand. “Think you can give me an assist?”
    She started to reach for him but stopped a split second before their fingers touched. “You even think about calling yourself my master, you can forget about the whole thing. I’ve seen those movies.”
    He didn’t let himself laugh. It wasn’t easy.
    “How about partner instead?”
    She pulled him to his feet. He gritted his teeth against the pain, but it all seemed to come from his ribs, not his back.
    She let go of his hand like it burned her. “You assume a hell of a lot, you know that?”
    Finn’s old master had assumed a hell of a lot, too. Not that he’d been wrong.
    Finn didn’t think he was wrong about Keesa. She had all the energy and passion he’d lost during the years he’d spent killing more creeps than he could count.
    His master had been right. The life of a Guardian was a hard life. A lonely life, especially the way Finn had lived it, but maybe it didn’t have to be. Apprentices eventually left their masters behind. Partners didn’t have to say goodbye to each other.
    “You’ll learn to love that about me,” he told his new apprentice.
    She snorted. “Arrogant, too. Have I told you that I hate humans?”
    She hadn’t, but Finn didn’t mind. She could hate him all she wanted. He didn’t like goblins much either.
    Great partnerships had started with far less.

 
     
     
     
     
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
     
     
    Award-winning author Annie Reed describes herself as a desert rat who longs to live by the ocean. Since she hasn’t yet convinced her family to relocate to a nice chunk of beachfront property, she’s done the next best thing—written a series of stories set in a contemporary Pacific Northwest city where magic and reality go hand in hand. Private investigators Diz and Dee populate Annie’s more lighthearted stories, while denizens of a much rougher neighborhood lurk in her Tales From the Shadows .
    A talented and versatile writer whose fantasy, science fiction, and mystery stories have sold to a wide variety of publications, Annie is also the author of the Abby Maxon mystery novels Pretty Little Horses and Paper Bullets, as well as A Death in Cumberland. Annie’s short stories also appear on a regular basis in the Fiction River anthologies.
    Annie reports that her husband is thrilled that with her contribution to this issue of the Uncollected Anthology, she’s finally written about one of his favorite urban fantasy subjects. After more than three decades of marriage, he says he’s finally brought her over to the dark side. She’s pretty sure that happened when she started watching football.
    For more information about Annie, go to www.annie-reed.com .

 
     
    THE UNCOLLECTED