Younger Gods 1: The Younger Gods Read Online Free PDF Page A

If you just wanted to smash-and-grab, you would have already done it.”
    “Thank you.” We were reaching an understanding at least.
    I listened to the water bubble and boil as I built myself a mobile kit with several reference texts on summoning, binding, and warding spirits.
    Our family magic largely drew from the Deeps, the background radiation of the universe, which existed everywhere in trace amounts but clustered in its greatest density in the core of the earth, the domain of the Gatekeepers.
    The Greenes gained access to the Deeps through centuries of pacts and deals with the Gatekeepers, and their connections to the Bold—gods who started a celestial civil war in order to claim control over the universe.
    The Gatekeepers were ostensibly neutral, but the Bold had sworn a number to their service. The Gatekeepers were as old as the gods, created when the universe was born. And the Deeps were raw power, most effective when focused and filtered to a specific purpose rather than wielded raw.
    Having forsaken the Deeps, I needed to turn to lesser powers, sources such as blood, and the power of spirits. Beneath the Gatekeepers in power were the chthonic spirits, creatures inherent to and emergent from the world, spiritual reflections of nature: beings of air, wood, fire, earth, and so on.
    The lesser spirits were far easier to bind, due to their proximity, their relative weakness, and their default neutrality. They served not the gods such as Antoinette’s Legba, nor the Gatekeepers, nor the Bold. The Gatekeepers constantly demanded prices, but spirits could be bent to one’s will through dominance, sometimes merely through persuasion.
    I returned to the glass counters and added several crystals and gems to my collection, the basic tools of the trade for a sorcerer. Each style of gemstone and crystal had a specific resonance. Some were associated with the air, some to fire, others to beasts and vegetation. A fully-equipped practitioner would have access to more than a dozen stones to be ready for any situation. But they would also need a power source.
    To my collection of borrowed stones, I added several opals, feeling the buzzing power contained within. These were as close to magical batteries as one could get. Outside of viewing humans as blood sacks. Another notion I had been raised with and never truly accepted. Perhaps my departure from the family was inevitable.
    A few minutes later, Ms. Laroux offered me a mug of tea (the mug read “Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards”), which I sipped dutifully, tasting for poison before taking a larger drink. I considered the taste for a moment. Beyond the scalding were notes of hibiscus, cardamom, and something odd.
    “Is this nightshade?” I asked.
    Laroux huffed. “Yeah, it is. That’s pretty good. You an herbalist too?”
    “My parents were very catholic in our upbringing. Small c catholic, that is.”
    That combination of flavors could not cover any poison that I knew of, so I continued to drink, letting the near-scalding heat soothe as it ran down my throat and warm my chest.
    “Shall I begin again?” I asked, eager to get back on the trail. Esther could already have taken the next victim. Our only advantage was that such kidnappings or assaults would draw attention, even in a city like New York. That and I could easily track her using our blood tie.
    I’d gone to great lengths to make my blood inaccessible to the family, giving of myself to mask my presence using the tourmaline and controlled bloodletting rituals—which had nearly gotten me thrown out of the dormitory until I changed my timing and did the bloodletting at four in the morning, usually after a round of nightmares.
    It seemed unlikely that Esther had taken similar precautions, but I wouldn’t know until I tried. And I couldn’t try until I had Ms. Laroux’s support.
    “Okay, now. Had to let it get into your system.”
    I repeated my best estimation as to the identity of the invader and her