the huntress 04 - eternal magic Read Online Free PDF

returning back to their hell. That was the nice thing about demons—you didn’t get the guilt of having actually killed them, and they cleaned themselves up once they were dead.
    I glanced back down the corridor, but saw no more coming. 
    “Why aren’t there anymore?” I asked. We hadn’t passed any kind of threshold that would have stopped them, like sometimes happened with tomb guardians.
    “Killed ‘em all?”
    “Maybe. But their numbers seemed pretty endless.”
    “Yeah, it is a bit weird that they stopped coming,” she said. “But you got the dampening charm, right?”
    “I grabbed it, but it didn’t work. A demon knocked it out of my hand, and I didn’t have time to get it back before we ran for it.”
    “Let’s go get it.”
    “But it didn’t work.”
    “You don’t know that. Maybe we need to do something with it. Ignite the magic or a spell. And we can get a few items for our shop, courtesy of our mummy friend.”
    “Good point. And maybe we can fix up some of the damage those damned demons did.” I hated to leave an archaeological site worse than when I found it. It was irreparably altered, but maybe I could help a bit.
    “Just keep an eye out for more demons,” Del said. “They might reappear when we get back to the treasure room.”
    I nodded.
    It didn’t take us long to make our way back. With the door now open to the main treasure room, we didn’t have to build any boats.
    When we reached the entrance to the treasure room, we hesitated. Without a dozen demons with fire swords, it didn’t look quite so bad. There were a few broken boxes and artifacts tumbled around, but for the most part, it looked almost whole.
    “Keep watch,” I said. “I’ll find the dampening charm and some artifacts.”
    “‘Kay.” Del tugged the bag off her back and handed it to me. In her phantom form, she stepped into the room, her sword raised.
    I went to the corner where the dampening charm had fallen. Ornate wooden boxes were stacked about waist high. I searched between them, finally spotting the glint of gold. I grabbed the cuff. When I pulled it out, I scowled at it and shoved it into my pocket.
    “Sense anything particularly old?” I asked Del as I went to the center of the room.
    She pointed to a box that had tumbled to the floor and broken open. “That guy feels almost expired.”
    I knelt at the box and immediately felt the magic. It pulsed strongly and smelled of turpentine. I turned the box upright, opened it, and peered inside. 
    Delicate white fabric was wrapped around an object about eight inches long. I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped a pic, recording the wrapping style so that when I returned the artifact to the box after we’d taken the magic, I could wrap it up the same way. I should have done that with the dampening charm, but I’d lost my head a bit.
    After setting the phone on my thigh, I peeled the fabric away. If this had been a human archaeological site, the fabric would be as fragile as a layer of dust. Unwrapping the artifact would have destroyed the fabric and possibly the artifact itself, depending on what it was made of. 
    But because the supernaturals who had built this pyramid had enchanted it against decay, I had a lot more freedom in my work.
    The fabric fell away to reveal an alabaster statue of Bastet, the Egyptian cat god. The magic pulsed even stronger when I held the alabaster against my skin, but I couldn’t quite identify it.
    I snapped another picture of the statue in front of the box so that I returned it to the right one, then moved on to several other boxes. It was hardly proper archaeology, but it was the best I could do.
    After I’d filled my bag with four artifacts that contained nearly-decayed magic and taken the needed pictures, I stood.
    “All done,” I said. 
    “Good. Let’s scram.”
    “Agreed.” This was one of the most amazing pyramids I’d ever been inside, but I didn’t particularly like it. Between the dampening charm