Gremlin Night Dale Smith (comprehension books txt) 📖

“Not just from the letter. He was taking care of her.” I pursed my lips. It was going to be difficult to find him. I suddenly went cold. “He’s a target.”

“So were we, just now. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but someone just sent a manifestation to kill us. Two, in fact. First the gargoyle then this nymph.”

“Fake nymph,” I corrected. “That piece of work was nasty. So was the gargoyle. How did they get here? Therese’s last testament said a wizard had come here, threatened her, tried to get her to surrender her friend and lover, then stationed ravagers outside with orders to attack when the solstice came. The height of nocturnal magic.”

“You think that same wizard conjured the ‘fake nymph” to destroy us. Why? To cover their tracks? Tully asked. “Wouldn’t that just draw attention?”

Tully had a point.

“Maybe it wasn’t the same wizard.”

He looked at me sideways. “First we have nearly impossible artifacts—”

“Or one impossible super artifact,” I interrupted. “I still think it’s a single artifact.”

“Now you’re saying two wizards? I was trained that wizards are rare.”

“But there are more than a couple of them.”

He gazed up at the sky. “But two in Portland, when there’s a crisis in Seattle?” His question was a low murmur.

“Sounds like exactly the time to have two wizards in Seattle.” But Tully had a point. Wizards weren’t nearly as numerous as we sorcerers. Mastering two or more kinds of magic risked madness. My mother had pulled it off, as has a wizard in my grandmother’s group, but those were exceptions. Like all wizards. To have two here stretched things quite a lot.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I didn’t, but someone had gone over this place, sent in the ravagers, and then a fake-nymph. Maybe we weren’t the target. Maybe the great elf had been. “We need to talk to the elf.”

“We have no idea where he is,” Tully said.

“Not yet.” I smiled. “You’ll need to read a possession of his.”

Tully raised a hand. “Now wait a minute. That’s not part of my seeing.”

“Why not? Seers can see, right? You see mana, see how it intertwines with magic. There’s links between people and manifestations, and also between the possessions belonging to people or having belonged to manifestations who have been resident long enough to establish deeper connections.”

“I’ve only done field work on tracing mana and magic trails. I’m not a reader.”

I shrugged. “You just need to give yourself a little bit of time.”

His frown deepened. “Says the binder. When did you become an expert on seeing?”

“I worked with a seer for three years. I get it.” He was more reluctant than I thought he would be to give it a try. “Come on, it’s our best shot at getting a fix on the elf quickly.” I gestured at the house. “Just look for the magic and mana in an item, and follow where it leads.

I thought he was going to argue some more, but he nodded.

We went back inside the house, and Tully began looking around.

He searched the entry room, then moved into the living room, and finally the kitchen, searching for something. Minutes ticked by and I found myself tapping my toes, fidgeting. We couldn’t wait all night. We had to get moving. The gremlin outbreak needed to be solved, and soon.

“We don’t have much time,” I finally said.

“You were the one who wanted me to take the time to do this.”

“Sure, but can you speed it up?”

He stopped, turned, crossed his big arms across his huge chest, a mountain of muscle in black leather. “It takes time,” he said. “Just as you said, earlier.”

I opened my mouth, but didn’t have anything to argue with. I’d pushed him to do this. He turned back to his search. Five minutes passed. I know because I stood there fidgeting the whole time. Here I’d suggested -- really, practically ordered him -- to perform a seeing spell he’d never tried before.

Then I heard a very faint humming. He was humming quietly. Part of the spell? Tomlinson had never done that when he read an item.

Tully said something in a language I didn’t recognize. He stared at a carafe on a glass tray, two plain white porcelain mugs beside it. The carafe was half-full of water.

“That’s just a pitcher,” I pointed out.

Tully ignored me. He reached with trembling fingers for the carafe, still muttering low in that unknown language.

“It works,” he said in English. “I can see it. See the trail.”

But a carafe. Of all the things Tully could have chosen to find an emotional connection between Therese and Sylvas. “I don’t get it,” I said.

“Because you’re blind to what they went through,” he said.

“Don’t tell me how I feel,” I retorted.

Again, he ignored me, lost in his vision. “He brought that carafe to Therese, help her drink to refresh her thirst, to take her medicine, to stay alive. Not just every day, sometimes, every hour.”

“How can you be so sure?” I demanded, my voice rising. I caught myself. What in the high heavens was wrong with me?

Tully ignored my outburst. “I can see the emotion, the love, the connection the two of them had. It’s there in the thread of the magic and the way the mana still pools around it.”

I shook my head. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t see how connected they were?

Maybe because of my sister. My guts knotted up at the thought of sis. It had been my fault all those years ago. Mine. No one else. Certainly not hers. All those things we’d shared. Tennis rackets. Bikes. Even shoes and clothes. We were only a year apart. Not quite twins, but close enough. All those things I’d gotten rid of.

I blinked.

“Okay, I see that now,” I said quietly.

Tully watched me with a concerned expression. “I have a trail,” he said, finally. “We can follow it.”

“Great,” I said, straightening up and pushing the memory of my sister back into the shadows of my mind, to